Impasse
by JillianCasey
Summary: I think I'm afraid of being happy because whenever I get too happy something bad always happens —Charlie Brown
1. One

Kate doesn't move. His eyes are wide, staring at her as his mouth tips open in shock. He exhales, his breath fanning over her face. A glazed film starts to lower slowly over his eyeballs. She can almost see her reflection in it. She doesn't move, just watches for what seems like hours, days maybe.

There's blood on her hands. It pumps out of him and drenches her fingers, warm and sticky. It's stained her shirt. The knife handle grows slippery in her hand, achingly warm from the life she's taking from him, or maybe taking back. She twists the knife, grits her teeth as it turns in his stomach, rips jaggedly through the muscle. He grunts quietly, desperately.

"How's that for a reckoning?" she whispers.

_—Four days earlier—_

He loves her in moments like this.

He loves her always, of course. But it's moments like this, when she looks at him like _that_, when she moves just _like this_—he loves her in moments like this. Her naked, sweating body against his is the promise of the past four years finally come to life, and he's still stunned by it all. Stunned and maybe a little annoyed that they hadn't figured it out earlier because _God_, the sex is good.

"Castle," she breathes, clawing at his back. Her legs, wrapped around him loosely, suddenly squeeze him close. He sometimes wonders if she uses his surname strategically. He likes when she calls him Rick—it's a signal of how far they've come and how much they've changed—but sometimes she reverts to Castle in moments like this and he wonders.

She darts her tongue out, traces the shell of his ear. "Castle."

He decides he doesn't care. She could be calling him _macaroni_, and as long as she said it like that, he'd be okay with it. He ghosts one of his hands along the curve of her back, thrusts up and meets the movement of her hips. She arches, sobs out a breath.

"Please," she says.

Maybe he loves moments like this more. The eye of the storm, the way she loses control in a way that the ordered, straight-laced detective he first met never would've dreamed of showing him. She shows him all her sides now and he loves every single one so much that it sets him on fire, an undeniable, all-consuming inferno of a thing that starts in the center of his chest and engulfs the rest of him quickly and without remorse.

When he comes back to himself she's draped over him, one arm hanging loosely at her side, the other lifted so that her slender fingers can weave through the hair at the nape of his neck.

"I think that gets better every time," she says into his neck, her lips moving against his skin.

He chuckles. "Practice makes perfect."

She huffs a laugh, shifts against him. He groans at the movement. She buries her head in his shoulder and giggles. _Giggles_. "Think of how we would've been as teenagers."

He plants a kiss on the crown of her head. "I would've tired you out."

"You tire me out now," she says, rolling off of him and flopping onto the bed. He unceremoniously shoves an arm beneath her back, pulls her toward him and half onto his chest.

"Old woman."

She kisses his chest, runs her nails over his stomach. "I could go again. You want to go again?"

"I, uh…"

She laughs. "Mhmm."

He nuzzles into her hair. "Evil woman."

She doesn't answer. He thinks she's fallen asleep, so he jolts in surprise when she whispers a few moments later.

"Love you."

He loves her in moments like this.

X-X-X-X-X

It's been an interesting summer.

When the back-to-school supplies hit the shelves in August, Kate realized that it had, in fact, been an entire summer since that night in May. An entire summer since she dangled from a rooftop and wheezed around severely bruised ribs; since she told Gates to keep the badge and threw in a _go-to-hell_ look for good measure; since she showed up drenched outside Castle's door and told him what she'd known with complete certainty since that bullet drilled into her heart in the cemetery.

She's died a few times in the past four years, and it's always the same. When she dies, she thinks of him. Except that night in May, the thought alone wasn't enough anymore. That night the rain melted into her skin and left its mark—millions of them—tiny imprints that whispered of moments and words and coffees and stares until the whisper was deafening. If it hadn't been so far, she would've run the whole way to his loft to tell him, show him that he wasn't alone in this. He never had been.

Montgomery told her once that there weren't any victories; only battles, lines drawn in the sand that forced people to choose which side they were on. Castle had picked his side and she picked hers, too. No more death. No more endless circles. Her mother would want her to live, Castle wanted her to live, and she wanted to live, too.

Seemed to be a unanimous. No need to put it off.

Now, as she wanders the decrepit and dusty bookshelves that have become her home away from home this summer, she smiles as she remembers. His tongue and his hands and him, all of him, are certainly emblazoned in her memory. That memory has been reinforced over the past few months by nights that proved to be far superior to the heat wave that took over the city in June and July. He, of course, made all the appropriate puns. She, of course, showed him that Nikki Heat had nothing on her.

They've had fun.

The first time she wandered into Bailey's Books, it was an afternoon where he was immersed in Nikki and Rook. Those first few weeks she'd barely given him time to sleep, let alone write, so when she found him typing furiously when she got out of his shower, she left him a note and slipped out of the loft. Bailey's Books was the first thing she saw, an inconspicuous tiny storefront on the corner of Castle's block, and she immediately wondered if he lived on that block because it was also inhabited by a bookstore.

She wandered in, smiled at the old man cataloging a massive pile of books, and then meandered to the back. A copy of Ovid's _Metamorphoses_ caught her attention, and she read in an overstuffed armchair surrounded by towering bookshelves until her phone chimed to signal that Castle was out of his writing coma.

She's come back often since then. She enjoys the way a thin film of dust has settled on some of the lesser used shelves. She likes the way the carpet is worn and faded blue, and how there are chairs and couches scattered throughout the store, as though someone wants her to forget that she's in the middle of Manhattan and not a separate world that changes depending on what book she picks up. There are classics and modern poetry and autobiographies and duplicate copies of everything Mamet has ever written. The spines are old, and the pages smell of history and potential. She smiles every time she takes a whiff, because she is every inch Johanna Beckett's daughter. Usually she can bask in the stillness and silence, as well.

"We can't have sex in the biography section. Look at this. A biography on Mike Tyson? How am I supposed to get you off if Mike Tyson is staring at me?"

Usually.

"Castle," she says. She doesn't even turn to look at him. She couldn't if she wanted to, he's pressed so close to her back. "We didn't come here to have sex. We came here to look at books."

"Maybe _you_ did. I came to look at you."

"Can't you look in silence?"

"I'm sorry, have we met?"'

A laugh bubbles out of her, unbidden, and she rolls her eyes. They cross the aisle into the thriller section. "I thought I'd get used to you," she muses, running her index finger along the blistered spine of a James Patterson paperback.

"Don't stroke Patterson like that," he growls in response. "And you are used to me."

"How do _you_ know?"

"You didn't even glare at me when I grabbed your ass in the elevator."

He's saved from her response by the shrill ring of her cell phone. She casts a look at him over her shoulder as she pulls her phone out of her pocket. "Grab it again and see what happens."

He grins crookedly, wiggles his eyebrows. "I love it when we play truth or dare."

"Hello?" she says into her phone, biting her lip as she holds his eyes. She wants him to see exactly what she's thinking, and she wonders if she should be worried that he does.

"Is this Detective Beckett?"

She feels the smile drain out of her. She turns away from Castle, wanders blindly down the aisle. "This is Kate Beckett," she answers. "Who is this?"

"You don't know me."

Castle follows her, brushes his hand along her hip. "Kate?"

She should hang up the phone. This is a prank. Some stupid kid trying to have some fun. "Okay," she says into her phone instead. "So then why are you calling me?"

"We should meet. It's about your mother."

Kate feels bottomed out, suddenly hollow. She inhales slowly, feels the breath stutter through her trachea, rush into her body. It's not enough. She can't breathe.

"My mother is dead."

"Kate," Castle says, more forceful this time, and she turns to look at him because she can hear the panic threading through his voice. Once she turns around, she sees it in his eyes, too.

"I know," the voice on the other end of the line says. "And you will be too unless you hear what I have to say."

It could be nothing. It could be everything. She isn't ready for this; she walked away from this in May and she meant it. She doesn't want to do this. It's pulling at her though, hooking into her core and yanking, and even as her lips form the word _no_ her throat constricts and won't let it out.

She has to do this.

Castle reaches for her, his eyebrows knit, all concern and love and the goodness that she's always been attracted to. It settles her. Not completely, but enough.

"Where can I meet you?"

X-X-X-X-X

The cab pulls up in front of a diner that looks like hundreds of other diners all over Manhattan. It looks like the diner where she met Raglan. The exploding coffee mug, the screams, the blood on her sweater, the haunted look in Castle's eyes—suddenly it's all real and happening and she reaches out, grabs ahold of the closest thing she can. Castle's hand.

He's halfway out of the cab. He looks at her, lowers himself back onto the seat. "We don't have to do this."

She swallows. Tries to remember how to breathe. "I can do this."

Castle gives her a crooked smile. "I never said you couldn't. I said you didn't have to."

She squeezes his hand. "I want to."

He nods. "Okay. Let's go."

Once they're out of the cab, she reaches for his hand again. She laces their fingers, pretends she doesn't see the look he shoots her way. It's been a while since she's seen him look at her like that. Not since the morning after, when she told him she'd quit and then showed him why.

He didn't press her during the cab ride. That's why she almost said it.

_I don't want to go back._

She doesn't want to live from moment to moment, chasing a shadow she'll never catch. She doesn't want to lose Castle, and she doesn't want to lose herself. But she's here. She's walking into a grubby diner with her hand in his, looking around for a guy in a blue plaid shirt who claimed he needed to talk to her if she wanted to live.

She wants to live.

She sees him in the back booth, nursing a coffee. Cliché, she thinks, but she doesn't point it out to Castle. She leads her partner back toward the booth, stops next to the table.

The man is older. Her dad's age, maybe. He's balding, gray hair crowning his head around a bald spot shining in the dim light of the diner. It looks like he hasn't shaved in a while, his chin grizzled over a deep dimple. He smiles at her, revealing a row of crooked teeth, stained from coffee, maybe cigarettes. He's wearing a wedding ring.

"Detective," he greets, inclining his head toward her. "Mr. Castle."

"What do you want?" Kate asks.

He nods at the open seat across from him. "Why don't you have a seat?"

She stares at him for a moment, and he stares back. Finally, she slides into the booth. Castle follows.

"What's your name?" she asks.

He smirks into his ceramic mug. "Does it matter?"

Kate sizes him up. He's wearing a pin on the lapel of his coat. She recognizes the look of it. Surprise takes over, then suspicion. She looks him right in the eye. "You're a cop."

"I was," he acknowledges after a brief pause. Castle looks between them, obviously suppressing a million questions. She grips his knee under the table. He puts his hand over hers.

The nameless man who used to work at the 4th precinct stares out the window. Kate watches him. "People used to look at me like I was some kind of hero," he murmurs. "They don't look at me like that anymore."

"Maybe it's because you reek of whiskey."

He barks out a laugh. He finally looks at Castle. "Lady knows her alcohol."

Kate moves her hand from Castle's knee, brings it up to the table as she leans back in the seat. "My father drank whiskey. I'd know the smell anywhere."

The man holds her eyes. "We did that to him."

Shock squeezes her lungs, makes her lean forward. "Did what?" He doesn't answer. "Did _what_?" she demands.

He sips his coffee. "I heard you quit the force."

"The bottom of the bottle tell you that?"

"I have sources. You shouldn't have done that, Katie. You shouldn't have quit."

She wants to jump across the table, wrap her fingers around his neck and squeeze until he takes it back, all of it, the nickname her mother gave her, and the pin on his lapel that he doesn't deserve if he knows what he's pretending to know, and the way Castle's shoulders are tense because he's terrified she's slipping away again.

"Why not?" she asks instead.

"You quit because you thought they'd leave you alone. Both of you."

He glances at Castle. Kate shifts closer to her boyfriend, wanting to shield him. "He doesn't have anything to do with this."

"Oh, he's just as much in this as you are. You made sure of that."

"Is that a threat?" she growls.

"Oh, no. Just a warning."

"A warning about _what_?"

"They haven't forgotten you. And they won't let you walk away."

The waitress appears, asks if they'd like to place an order. "No," Kate says, not taking her eyes off the man across the table. The waitress lingers awkwardly for a moment, and then shuffles away. Kate folds her hands on the table.

"You said we. You're one of them."

"Like I said. I was a cop."

The nightmares that haunt her at night, less often now than last summer when they happened every night, make a sudden appearance in the middle of the afternoon. Montgomery's flask, cold beneath her fingertips as she takes a swig; his voice when he tells her that this is where he's going to make his stand. The way his office looked without him in it: an empty chair, no lights, Evelyn and the kids still smiling from a picture frame on the desk.

Castle can't seem to suppress the questions anymore. "Are you saying that the Dragon…" he starts, stops. He starts again. "The people behind…" He stops again.

The man stares. "Johanna Beckett's murder," he supplies blandly.

Castle glances at Kate, but she doesn't say anything. "You're saying they're _cops_?" Castle asks.

"Some of them. But you knew that. Roy told you that, didn't he?"

Castle doesn't have an answer for that. It wouldn't matter anyway; the man has changed his focus from Castle back to Kate. His curious, calculating stare rivals even the most serious appraisals she's gotten from Castle over the years.

"What do you want from me?" she asks him.

"I want you to rejoin the force."

"No."

"You think you're protecting yourself. You think you're protecting him. You're not."

Castle shifts in his seat. Kate shakes her head. "I'm not a cop anymore."

"You think because you don't have a badge and a gun that it isn't a part of you? That it isn't who you are? You can't run from who you are."

"She's more than a cop," Castle protests, his voice lifting angrily.

"Tell him he doesn't understand," the man counters, leaning across the table toward Kate. His voice is low, urgent, and a wave of goosebumps rushes over her skin. "Tell him that this isn't a job, it's a calling, and you can only deafen it with beach vacations and new boyfriends for so long. You think you became a cop because your mother was murdered. You didn't. You became a cop because you were supposed to be one. Because you're one of the only people who's good enough to bring this city back up from its knees."

The intensity of his sincerity bowls her over, makes her remember all the nights this summer when she woke up feeling like she didn't know who she was anymore.

"This is starting to sound like a comic book," she deadpans. "You come up with a good superhero name for me yet?"

He shakes his head. "You can evade me all you want, but I promise you one thing. Either you find them, or they'll find you. And trust me, when they find you, they're going to find the people you love, too."

He sets his coffee mug on the table with a clink, scoots across the seat and then rises out of the booth. As he leaves, Kate calls out after him.

"Even if I did what you're asking, there are no leads." He stops, turns. She meets his eyes. "Whoever your friends are, they're in high places. Too high for me to bring down."

The man stares at her for a while before reaching up and running his thumb over his 4th precinct pin. He slides his hands into his pockets. "'This day the Lord will deliver you into my hands, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. This very day I will give the carcasses of the Philistine army to the birds and the wild animals, and the whole world will know that there is a God in Israel.'"

"What the hell?" Castle whispers.

The man nods at her. "Lord be with you, Detective Beckett."

He leaves then, and Castle spins in the booth to watch him go. Kate stares down at her hands. She hears the bells above the door jangle. Castle looks at her. "Kate. What's he talking about? He wants to…he wants to cut off your head?"

"No. It's from the Old Testament."

She meets his eyes.

"The story of David and Goliath."


	2. Two

_Thanks go to Carto for being helpful when she'd rather be eating bison._

* * *

They're on the curb outside the diner when her phone chimes to signal she has a text message. She slides it out of her pocket as Castle tries to wave down a cab. She doesn't recognize the number, but she knows who it is as soon as she reads the message.

_Take a trip to public records. Pulgatti's case. The people._

"Is it him?" Castle says in her ear. She jumps, surprised that he's so close. When she looks up at him, his eyes are soft and sympathetic. "Sorry."

She waves off his apology. "He wants me to go through the public records, look at Pulgatti's case. Something about the people?"

"People," Castle repeats. "Like the people involved in the case?"

"I assume so," Kate says, looking back down at the message. She wills it to give her more information, but the screen doesn't change. She sighs.

"Hey," Castle says softly, placing his hand on her lower back. "We don't have to do what he says. We can go back to wandering through Bailey's."

She looks up at him. "Is that what you want?"

"Kate, I…" he stares at her, but she can't look at him anymore. Her heart aches, longs to go back to where they were an hour ago, wandering through aisles of books with foreplay bouncing between them. This summer has been so _good_; she's healed and rediscovered and fallen in love, and now it's being threatened. Why are there always threats? As long as she's known him, there have always been threats, threats against him and her and them. And the threats always stem back to the same thing: that night in January when she found two detectives waiting for her and her father at their front door.

"Kate," Castle calls, bringing her back. He puts his hands on her shoulders, smoothes them down her arms. "Look at me."

She does, swallows around the thickness in her throat.

"I'll do this with you."

"You told me to walk away." He opens his mouth to argue, but she cuts him off. "You said that. In May, you said that if I loved you, I'd walk away. I walked away, Rick. I walked away for you."

He shakes his head. "I didn't mean for you to quit."

"This isn't about that."

"Of course it is. Whoever that bible quoting former cop is, he wants you to rejoin the force. And you want to. I can see it in your eyes."

"No, Rick," she sighs, feeling like there's more than air leaving her body as she breathes. "I don't want my badge. I want justice." She looks up at him. "That's all I've ever wanted. And that's what he's offering. When he says rejoin the force, he means rejoin the force to investigate my mother's case. Why else do you think we'd be looking at Pulgatti's file? That's the file that got my mother killed."

She doesn't say it, but it's hanging in the air between them. It's the file that almost got her killed, too, once from a sniper and once from a rooftop fight that didn't go her way. It almost killed Esposito. It did kill Montgomery, though Montgomery was why it all started to begin with. Years ago he'd started all of this, when he killed an undercover fed and McCallister and Raglan pinned it on Pulgatti. If they hadn't been kidnapping mobsters for ransom, if her mother hadn't tried to free Pulgatti when she realized he'd been wrongfully convicted, if Kate hadn't become a cop because she couldn't sleep at night because of the injustice of it all…

If.

"If you need this," Castle murmurs. She feels her heart start to beat double-time. "If you need to do this," he repeats. "I'll do it with you. I will. Just say the word."

She shakes her head. "I just want to check it out—"

"Just say it," he cuts her off. "Say it, Kate."

She licks her lips. The world slows the way it always does before she makes a monumental decision. She inhales. Exhales. Reaches for his hand and laces their fingers.

"I need this. And I need you."

He nods, just once. "Okay."

X-X-X-X-X

"Okay, so just for the sake of my old and feeble brain, we should map this out."

Kate watches as Castle uncaps a pen and writes her mother's name in the center of a blank piece of paper. "Feeble?" she asks.

He waves his free hand at her. "Yes, just because my girlfriend is young and insatiable doesn't mean I am."

"Insatiable," she repeats, arching an eyebrow when he looks up at her.

He grins. "Oh, yeah. Sure. She can't get enough of me. It's hard to keep up."

"Sounds like your girlfriend should find herself someone who can keep up. Maybe James Patterson?"

He glowers at her. "You are a cruel woman, Kate Beckett."

She smirks and taps the paper in front of him. "Focus, Castle."

"Right," he says, turning his attention back to the page. "Let's review what we know. We know that your mother was killed because she was trying to get Pulgatti's conviction overturned. He was convicted for killing Bob Armen, an undercover fed."

"And we know Armen was really killed by Montgomery," Kate continues. "Montgomery was running a kidnap-ransom scheme with Raglan and McCallister that targeted local mobsters. Street justice."

"We also know that the ransom money was used by this mysterious Dragon-man to get into a position of power and authority that we assume he still holds today." He looks up at her suddenly, eyes wide. "Ohmygod, its Barack Obama."

Kate rolls her eyes. "Give me that," she says, stealing the pen from his hand. She jots down the world _Dragon_ and circles it. "We don't know who the Dragon is, but—" she holds up a hand to stop him when he opens his mouth "—we do know it's not President Obama."

Castle pouts. "Killjoy."

"What we don't know," she continues, ignoring his pout, "is how the man we just met is related to all of this."

"True. But we're missing a few people we do know."

"Like who?"

"Coonan, Lockwood, Maddox. All hit men that the Dragon has at his disposal."

"Had," she corrects, jotting their names down on the makeshift murder board. "Maddox is the only one who is still alive."

"Well, and there's you. You're still alive."

She looks up at him, surprised.

He shrugs. "Just saying."

Their gazes hold. She resists the urge to kiss him. "So," she says. "We're supposed to look at Pulgatti's file."

Castle shakes his head as she clicks into the public records database on the desktop computer sitting in front of them. "We looked at it dozens of times when we were searching for Lockwood last year. Nothing will be there. It's a bad lead."

"Maybe we missed something," Kate says, scanning the document after it pops up.

"The public record isn't the real story, though," Castle argues. "That says that Pulgatti was accused and convicted of Bob Armen's murder. Arrested by Raglan and McCallister. The people don't matter because the file is inaccurate."

Kate looks over at him. "So then why would he want us to look at it?"

"Maybe he doesn't know that you know who really killed Pulgatti?"

She shakes her head. "No, that can't be it. He referenced Montgomery when you asked if it was cops that were behind the Dragon. He knows what we know about Roy."

"Then what the hell are we doing here?"

Kate looks back at the file, scans a few lines. Pulgatti represented by Victor Harvey…the people represented by a tag team of Julio Matisse and Edward Kilgore…jury deliberated for thirty minutes before reaching a guilty verdict…

"The people," she breathes, looking over at Castle. "He didn't mean the people involved in the case, he meant the lawyers who _represented_ the people."

Castle stares at her blankly. She gives him a look. "Really, as much _Law and Order_ as you watch and you can't tell me who _the people_ are?"

"The prosecutors!" he sputters.

She laughs. "Yes." She squints at the screen. "Julio Matisse and Edward Kilgore."

"Kilgore as in the D.A. who went on to become a New York senator, Kilgore?"

"Must be."

"I don't know who Matisse is. Do you?"

"No."

" Maybe they know something and that's why he sent us here."

She nods. "Maybe. Let's take a closer look."

X-X-X-X-X

They end up back at the loft, Castle's SmartBoard too powerful a tool to pass up when they're trying to keep a lot of names, dates, and facts straight. They share a pizza as she reads him the information and he taps it all in, his fingers dancing over the screen so smoothly that she's captivated and forgets to read sometimes. He's fascinating when he's spinning theories, and even though this theory means more than any of the hundreds of others they've gone over together, she can't help but shift her attention to him instead of her mother.

She's in love with him. That much she knows, and he knows it too, even though she has trouble getting the words out. He's patient with her, which she always chuckles about because if someone had asked her four years ago who would have to be the patient one if a relationship ever formed, she would've sworn it would be her. Instead it's him, and she constantly tries to find ways to show him how much it means to her.

Recently, she's had to show him a lot. As the summer wound down, she started getting restless. The first few weeks after she quit, she didn't have time to think about any of it because she was so wrapped up in him.

Literally.

Once she settled in, they started to make trips to the Hamptons and she discovered Bailey's books. That distracted her for a while. In the beginning of July, after a bout of restlessness that ended up in a massive fight, she realized she needed to go back to work. Not as a detective, but something else. She needed to make money and be busy and have a life that was more than just him.

She had no idea how to do that outside of the NYPD.

He fixed that, though she hadn't realized that's what he was doing initially. Suddenly she was the Chairperson for the charity he'd started in her mother's name, and she was meeting donors and planning a fundraiser. Even though it wasn't what she imagined doing for the rest of her life, it made her feel close to her mother in a way that she'd only ever experienced while closing a homicide. She didn't like playing nice with wealthy donors, but she did like meeting the people the charity helped. She didn't like hunting down caterers and venues either, but she did like knowing that her work was benefitting people her mother would've helped.

It wouldn't fill the void forever, but it was enough.

Now she's back to a murder board and theory building, and it's scary but somehow right, too. She belongs here, next to Castle as he mumbles around a mouthful of pizza and stares at the murder board in a way that she knows he learned from her. She's home again.

"Castle?" she asks.

"Hmm," he hums, gnawing on his pizza crust and zipping his index finger across the SmartBoard to move a piece of information to the other side.

"What changed?"

He turns to look at her with a frown. "What do you mean?"

"I mean, why are you doing this with me?" He swallows the crust and stares at her. She keeps talking. "Why'd you construct a murder board and go with me to meet a man whose name we don't even know? Why aren't you asking me to walk away?"

He shrugs. "You're different."

Her facial expression must communicate her disbelief.

"The spark is still there," he amends. "You want justice, and you want it badly. But you're not…" He sighs, runs his hand through his hair. "You're not suicidal this time."

That hits her where it hurts, mostly because she can still remember the look on his face when he begged her to walk away and she told him no. "Suicidal?" she all but whispers.

He looks so grave, so much older than he does when he smiles. "You can't see yourself when you get like that, Kate, so you don't know. You don't see the way your eyes glaze over. You don't inhale all the way."

"I called it an obsession for a reason."

He nods. "I know. But you're different now."

"You think I'm not obsessed anymore?"

He doesn't answer right away, seems to be choosing his words carefully. "No. I think you're consumed, certainly. That's just who you are. When you love, you love all the way. You loved your mom, and solving this case, getting justice...that's your way of still loving her even though she's gone."

He says it so beautifully, sums up the need that's been driving her every day for a decade so simply, that it steals the breath right out of her. She moves toward him immediately, brushes her hands over his face, his neck, his chest, just needs to touch him and show him, or maybe, for once, actually…

"I love you all the way."

His eyes widen in surprise, then shrink back to familiar, affectionate knowledge. "I know."

Castle kisses her, holds her close, and they forget about the murder board for the rest of the night.

X-X-X-X-X

He answers his phone on the first ring because he knows the number. He doesn't like to answer when he's at these types of functions, surrounded by these types of people, but there's only one reason why this number would call.

"What?" he says into the phone.

There's a brief pause on the other end of the line, and then: "She's out of hiding."

He exhales, runs a hand through his hair. He's almost disappointed. "How far out? I can be flexible with a relapse for the sake of preventing a mess."

"Accessed Pulgatti's file in the database. Had the writer in tow."

He looks around, makes sure no one sees him. He catches his wife's eye, who is watching him curiously. She gestures at a group of men nearby, her diamonds catching the light as she moves. He gives her a smile and a nod, holds up a finger and then ducks into a side room.

"Your professional opinion," he murmurs. The question isn't obvious. A man of his position doesn't ask questions, he makes decisions. But hell if he isn't annoyed as fuck that Kate Beckett won't go away and stay away.

"Gotta end it," the voice on the line answers.

"She can't reopen the case. She isn't a detective."

"Not yet. She's the best they have. They'll take her back if she asks, and if she's accessing that file, it won't be long."

He sighs again, stares up at the ceiling. Damn it, Kate Beckett. Damn you.

"You know what we can't do."

"Yes, sir."

"Make her lose both. And don't fail this time."


	3. Three

It's a standing appointment.

Ever since she quit the job, she's had lunch with her father every other Friday. The first time, she didn't even want to go, but she had to because she needed to tell him that she wasn't on the force anymore. She's always known how hard it was for him; turning up the TV every time news of a shooting broke, or double-taking police cars with sirens screaming as they passed. Always looking for her, always worried he'd have to bury both of the women in his life instead of just one. He asked her once, when she was still a rookie, to walk away. She'd looked him straight in the eye and told him that if he could tempt fate with a bottle then she could do it with a badge.

He never asked her again.

So, she didn't want to go. She wanted to stay in bed with Castle all day and pretend she wasn't still suffering from PTSD, pretend that she hadn't quit the job she'd put before everything else for so long. But she went. After the first time, after seeing the relief mixed with concern in his eyes and feeling the way he'd hugged her as they said goodbye, she offered to make it a standing appointment.

It's more consecutive time than she's spent with him in years. She told Castle after the last appointment, in the darkness of the night with her naked skin pressed to his as they dozed, that the last time she'd seen her father as often as she does now was when she was hauling his plastered ass out of bars and leaving him in the drunk tank until he sobered up. When she didn't regret her self-disclosure the next morning, she figured it was time.

That's why Castle tagged along today. She doesn't regret that either. Her father is all smiles, and Castle is nervous but thrilled, and she just sits back and watches them and soaks it in. The weather looks like it's going to turn into something nasty, and she has to meet with a particularly annoying donor for her mother's charity later, but right now, she's happy.

After a longer lunch than usual, their conversation spills out of the restaurant and onto the sidewalk. Her father is laughing because Castle is being charming as all hell. She plans to drag him into the bedroom for an afternoon session before her meeting with the donor. She watches him as he finishes his story. He's fiddling with his loft keys, twirling them around his index finger. The key chain from Columbia that Alexis gave to him a few weeks ago gleams as it whirls around his finger. Kate smirks. He never fiddles with things unless he's nervous.

As if on cue, the keys fall from his hand. She wants to laugh at the expression on his face, equal parts embarrassed and horrified, as though he's certain that a moment of clumsiness will ruin her father's good favor forever. She puts her hand on his forearm, smiles at him.

"I'll get them," she tells him.

She's bending over when the shot rings out.

It's all wrong. A gunshot belongs in her old life, in a painfully sunny cemetery. It belongs in a life where her hand meets a gun instead of her empty belt when she reaches back on a reflex. It belongs with Ryan and Esposito, and Castle in a vest with _Writer_ emblazoned across the chest.

There are no vests. She's unarmed and caught off guard. She hits the sidewalk immediately, still pawing desperately but in vain at her belt. Castle looks at her, wide-eyed, that frightened look she saw every one of the ten times he saved her life. A faint jangle comes from her left and she looks, sees her father's car keys sitting in a jumble on the concrete.

Sees her father with a bleeding bullet wound in his chest.

"No, no, no…" she moans, crawls toward him immediately. His eyes are already glassy, nearly unresponsive. He blinks up at her. Castle shouts, tries to pull her toward the cover of a parked delivery truck but she shoves him off. She cradles her father's head, watches the blood pour out of him, tries to wipe it with the hem of her shirt.

"Dad," she says. "Dad." Over and over and over again. His skin is so white and wrinkled. His eyes so blue, clear, the color of the sky the day she almost died. This is it, it's his turn to almost die but he'll make it, he will, the world is not that cruel, it will not take both her parents. It won't.

Somewhere in the distance, because everything except the man in her arms is too far away to fathom, she hears Castle calling 911, bellowing _officer down_, and she thinks _that's not even true_.

_He's dying for something that I'm not even a part of anymore. _

X-X-X-X-X

Ryan and Esposito burst into the waiting room, panting and wild-eyed. They're drenched. The skies must have finally opened up. She thinks there is probably something poetic about that, but she doesn't bother figuring out what. Poetry is for the living.

The boys look at each other, as if unsure what to say. Maybe it's the blood she's covered in. She won't wash it off, not even when the people in the waiting room stared, not even when Castle tried to coax her into changing into a pair of scrubs. He gave up trying almost as soon as he started.

"Kate," Esposito says. She closes her eyes, remembers all the times that she's called him Javi. All the times they've faced death together, because those are the only times when he calls her Kate and when she doesn't pretend he's just her annoying brother that dated her best friend. He's always had her back, even when he shouldn't. She should look at him. She doesn't.

"There isn't any news yet," Castle answers for her. He's sitting next to her, dutifully not touching her.

"Okay," Esposito says. "Well, you were in the twelfth's jurisdiction. We…it's ours."

He doesn't mean his and Ryan's. She looks at him.

_It's yours_.

"Then you should be at the scene," she says, her voice rough and crackling. She swallows, flinches when Castle puts a hand on her knee. He doesn't move it, but she knows he saw it. "Canvassing," she adds dumbly.

Ryan steps forward. "Gates has the whole damn precinct there. She's…well, she's running the scene. It's a little terrifying, actually."

Kate blinks at him. He shuffles, obviously uncomfortable. Kate looks down at her hands. "Okay," she says.

The silence stretches on for an entire minute. Castle trails his thumb along the inside of her knee, over a spatter of blood. Her dad's blood.

"Ms. Beckett?"

She looks up, sees a doctor in scrubs. He's looking right at her. _Stand up_, she tells her body. _Stand up and take it. _

She stands. Castle rises with her. The doctor clears his throat.

Once, when she was a child, she won a fish at a carnival. For three days, she stared at that fish every second she could and fed it entirely too much. One day, she came home from school, and the fishbowl was empty. She asked her mother where her fish went, but before her mom said a word, the look on her face said it all.

It's the same look the surgeon is wearing now.

"I'm so sorry, Ms. Beckett. We did everything we could, but the bullet was a straight shot to his heart. We couldn't repair the damage fast enough."

Kate's knees buckle. She hits the chair with a thud, moving too fast even for Castle. She puts the heels of her hands over her eyes and presses so hard she sees starbursts on her eyelids.

_And trust me, when they find you, they're going to find the people you love, too._

X-X-X-X-X

They don't show this part in movies. After the heroine finds out her loved one is dead, she cries, or screams, or holds another loved one close. Then the screen fades to black. You don't see her get up from her chair and sign the paperwork. You don't see the measured walk out of the ER, into the torrential downpour of the city's first rain in weeks. You don't see the cab ride home when her boyfriend watches her, his pain etched over every line in his face because he loves her and he doesn't think any of this is fair.

He can't control that, though, no more than he could control the sniper who murdered her father. He can't fix it. He can love her all he wants, but what's it matter? They came after her again, and she survived, just like the last time, but this time, the price was different. This time, she paid with her father's blood instead of her own, blood that's on her hands because that bullet was meant for _her_.

She killed her father. Killed him because she couldn't let go, she just had to follow one more lead, and it's going to kill Castle, too, because eventually they'll succeed. They will get to her, sooner rather than later, and when they do, it will destroy him.

_I'm sorry_, she wants to tell him as she follows him onto the elevator in his building. _I'm so sorry._

The sob that's been sitting in her throat starts to claw its way out. She clamps her lips together, watches the numbers in the elevator rise. She can do this. She can wait until its dark and he's fallen asleep. Or at least until she can lock herself in the bathroom. Maybe the shower. Something, somewhere, when she doesn't have to hold the pieces together for him anymore and can just collapse into the shards she is. She worked so hard to be good enough for him. She won't…she can't…

The elevator doors slide open and he leads her into the hallway. Her body trembles as she tries to keep it in. She can do this.

His thumb traces over the back of her hand, and she loses the battle.

The sob escapes, flies out of her mouth sounding every bit as pathetic as she thought it would. He turns around so fast, inadvertently tugging at her hand, that she loses her balance and falls toward him. He catches her, an arm around her waist, and when she inhales the scent of him at the crook of his neck, so familiar and warm and good, she loses it.

She sobs into his skin, clinging to him, and he doesn't even try to lead her the last few steps to the loft. Instead, he slides them down the nearby wall and onto the floor, pulling her into his lap, and rocks her as she cries.


	4. Four

Kate wakes with a searing pain in her chest.

The pain has been there for two days. Two days since she lost her father. Two days buried in the loft and lost in a jumble of hours and darkness, and it's not getting any easier to breathe.

It's the first nightmare that hasn't shaken Castle awake. She sits for a moment, panting, one hand over her racing heart. She licks her dry lips as she surveys the room. Her hair is stuck to her face, caught in her sweat. She brushes it away, the clamminess of her hands sliding slick against her cheek.

The numbers on the alarm clock glare orange at her. 4:17. She exhales heavily, tries to push the memory away. Blood everywhere. Dim blue eyes. Thunder rolling overhead. She wants to feel the cold steel of a gun in her hand. Wants to hold it in the quiet of the dark where no sound except her still-racing heart and the click of the safety going off can interrupt. The nameless face she wants on the other end of her vision taunts her with a hiss.

Furious, she throws the blanket off of her legs, slides deftly out of bed. Castle still doesn't wake up. She pads into the kitchen and makes coffee with trembling hands. She allows herself a brief moment to wish that he would wake up, that he would sidle up behind her and put his hands over hers, tell her he'll pour it until she stops shaking. He doesn't come, and she lifts the mug to her lips defiantly. Burns her tongue, doesn't care, takes another sip. Another. It's not the caffeine coursing through her veins but the routine, the familiarity, that finally stills her heart and her hands.

She dumps the rest, heads back to bed. She watches him for she doesn't even know how long. She doesn't like the clock numbers glaring at her so she unplugs it. It just reminds her of all the time her father will never have and the ticking time bomb that is her life. One of those terribly clichéd hourglasses, perhaps—squeezing out the last bits of sand before she's empty.

Who's she kidding? She's already empty.

Tears make her vision swim, her throat tight. She can't help it anymore. She reaches out, runs her index finger along the ridge of his jaw, up to his cheekbone.

"Castle," she breathes. Her voice breaks. "Castle, I don't know how to do this."

She isn't speaking loud enough to wake him. He wakes anyway. He blinks blearily, rubs his eyes, then bolts upright. The tears are streaming down her face now, but he doesn't say anything. He just reaches for her.

X-X-X-X-X

This time, he makes the coffee. She stares blankly at their makeshift murder board until he appears next to her, holds out a mug. She takes it as she watches the board, feels him watching her. She hasn't looked at it since the night before her father was killed. She couldn't bear to. Now, she's starting to feel the need pulling at her. She has double the reasons to put this to rest, and she can't waste any more time. Nightmares and aching emptiness be damned, she has a job to do.

"Do we change the victim?" she asks quietly.

She finally looks at him. It's written all over his face, and she doesn't know whether to apologize or beg him not to make her choose. She loves him, but she can't make that choice. Not when the blood flowing through her is a slow burn, steadily setting her on fire. It's only a matter of time. She's an inferno waiting for a match.

"No," he says. "This murder is ground zero."

She stares, stunned that he answered. He stares back. "You can go," she whispers before she loses her nerve. "If it's too much, you don't need to stay for me. I won't…I don't blame you."

"What, so you can do this alone?"

She shakes her head, smiles sadly at the steel in his voice. "Castle. My father is dead. My mother is dead. Everyone connected to this case, to me, is dead. I won't do that to Alexis."

He sets his jaw, shakes his head once. "It's not your choice."

She purses her lips, almost annoyed, but he's not giving in. "You made your choice," he presses on. "All those times I told you to walk away and you didn't—"

"I _did_," she argues, but he holds up a hand.

"You did," he acknowledges. "But you did it when you were ready. It was your life, and you made a choice. This is my life. And I'm making a choice. I'm making my stand."

She doesn't have the strength to fight him. Maybe somewhere down the road, when she doesn't feel so bottomed out, she'll argue with him. But not today. Not now.

She looks at the murder board. "What's our next move?"

"The twelfth."

She looks at him, eyebrows lifted in surprise. He shrugs and smiles at her, though it doesn't reach his eyes.

"Can't track down Julio Matisse and Edward Kilgore without a badge and a gun."

X-X-X-X-X

She's barely off the elevator at the twelfth before Gates' voice slices across the bullpen.

"Beckett. My office."

Kate tries not to be paranoid, but there's no denying it. The bullpen is silent except for her heels clicking on the floor. The gaze of every cop, uniform and detective, is fixed on her. She lifts her chin, strides across the bullpen and into Gates office. Somewhere along the way Castle peels off, heads for Ryan and Esposito's desks because he knows better than to assume that Gates' order included him.

Kate closes the door behind her. She turns around, expecting for Gates to be sitting behind her desk with a superior glare the way she always does. She's not. Instead, she's standing in front of Kate, just a little shorter because of the difference in heel height. And she's holding a gun and badge.

_Kate's_ gun and badge.

"I don't do apologies," she says, her tone as clipped as ever.

Kate stares at her. Gates purses her lips impatiently.

"Don't pretend like you don't know what to do with them, Detective."

Kate glances down at her badge, then back up at Gates. "Isn't this a conflict of interest?"

"If _you're_ running the case, you bet your ass it is," Gates snaps. "But _I'm_ running the case, and you're my best detective. I need your talent. So clip the damn badge on and let's find this son of a bitch."

X-X-X-X-X

"Told you," Esposito hisses in her ear. "You should've seen her shouting at CSU to get the trajectory of the bullet faster. Terrifying."

Kate wants to smile, but the bullet Esposito is talking about is the one that killed her father. She doesn't have a smile in her. All she's got is wrath.

"Until we get more evidence, this is our guy," Gates is saying to a crowd of unis and detectives. "Cole Maddox. Highly trained, highly intelligent. If you find him, don't be stupid."

As Gates starts dishing out orders and assignments, Kate stares at the one, grainy picture they have of Maddox. The last time she saw him, she'd been hanging from a roof with a million regrets. This time when she runs into him, she'll be different. Still with regrets, still hanging from a figurative roof by a thread, but different. Rage from her mother's death, but a new, cold calculation from her father's. She's still on fire, that's for sure, but it's a slow burn and she's going to nurse it.

Castle nudges her, brings her back to the present in time for her to see that everyone is dispersing to follow orders. She shoots him a thankful smile, which he returns with a nod. She heads straight for Gates.

"Sir, I'd like to make a suggestion."

Gates blinks at her. "All right."

"I told you about the informant I met with the day before the murder."

She doesn't have it in her to say her _father's_ murder. Gates nods. "The man with no name and no distinguishing features who may or may not be a former cop. That informant?"

Kate bites back her irritation. "Yes, sir. He pointed me in the direction of the prosecutors on the Pulgatti case, two men by the name of Julio Matisse and Edward Kilgore. I want to check them out."

One of Gates' perfectly trimmed eyebrows lifts slightly. "Kilgore the senator?"

"Yes."

"You want to go sniffing around a senator, Detective? On your first day back?"

"I want to check out Matisse first," Kate says around gritted teeth. "And then, yeah, I want to talk to the senator."

"Do we have _reason_ to talk to him?"

"Well, my father was murdered the day after I got a tip about him. That reason enough?"

For a moment, Kate thinks that Gates is going to blow up. Her nostrils flare and her eyes narrow. Kate stands her ground, though. Gates isn't Montgomery. Kate doesn't expect her to be, and she doesn't want her to be either. But this is her mother's case. Her father's case. This case _belongs_ to her. She might not be the detective of record, but she's damn well going to run it her way.

"Ryan and Esposito go with you," Gates answers tersely. "And only to see Matisse. You report back here before you visit any senators. Clear?"

Kate nods. "Yes, sir."

Gates turns on her heel and stalks away. Kate watches her go, unsure if she's won a battle only to lose the war.

"What'd you do to piss her off?" Castle's voice whispers in her ear.

Kate smirks. "I'll tell you on the way."

X-X-X-X-X

Matisse doesn't practice law anymore. According to his wife, he invested in his brother's architecture-construction business after he retired, and now he spends a lot of his time monitoring the progress of a few different projects. After talking Kate's ear off for a few minutes, Mrs. Matisse finally gave them an address of an under-construction apartment building where he's supposed to be spending the afternoon.

The foreman of the site directs them up to the twentieth floor. As they ride the elevator, Kate revels in the sound of Esposito and Ryan bickering while Castle teases them about being thrilled they're back together. She still feels the rage pumping through her veins, still feels the emptiness squeezing her insides, but the voices of the boys are soothing in their own unique way. She hadn't realized how much she depended on this, on their ridiculous banter and bromance, until now.

When they get to the twentieth floor, they step off the elevator to find the place a mess. The ceiling is torn up, and the walls are still made of nothing but dusty drywall. Wires hang from the ceiling, and various pieces of trash and half-used building materials are scattered around.

"Guess the construction isn't going so well," Esposito quips.

Kate starts to respond, but is cut off by a muffled pop that sounds an awful lot like a gunshot. They all freeze. Castle opens his mouth, but Kate holds up a hand. He shuts his mouth. She pulls her gun, and the boys follow suit. She creeps toward the sound, the boys flanking her, Castle falling into line somewhere behind them. Kate reaches the first door, listens. A muffled sound comes from the other side. She tries the door handle, only to find it locked.

She turns to the boys, makes a few motions with her hands. They nod. She meets Castle's eyes, gives him a warning look. He nods solemnly. Satisfied, she steps back, takes a deep breath, and kicks the door in with a loud crack.

"NYPD! Hands up!" she shouts, flying into the room with Ryan and Esposito hot on her heels. A man she recognizes from a DMV photo as Julio Matisse is on his knees in the center of the room. She looks around the rest of the room, catching glimpses in the corner of her vision of Ryan and Esposito clearing each side. She settles her eyes on Matisse and immediately regrets it.

Something is strapped to the center of his chest. Large, red numbers on a digital clock are counting down. The clock is strapped to a few white blocks. C-4. And the timer is on 6.

"Out! Get out!" Kate shouts, heading for the door. Castle is in the doorway and she shoves him back with both hands. He stumbles but she hangs onto him, feels Ryan and Esposito right on her back. She barely has time to press Castle to the wall and shield him with her body before the room explodes in a blinding white light.


	5. Five

Kate's ears are ringing.

She leans back, puts a hand on either side of Castle's face. He blinks at her through the white dust convoluting the air.

"Are you okay?" she asks him. She's probably shouting, but she can't hear a damn thing. The ringing in her ears is almost painful.

"Yes," Castle answers, and his voice sounds so far away. She can read his lips, though. She almost kisses him, because with snipers and bombs and all the shit that's happened in the past few days, God knows if she'll ever get another chance.

He puts his hands on her hips, leans his forehead against hers. She closes her eyes and lets him stay there for a moment. She needs this. Needs _him_. It's all too much.

She's the one that pulls away. She rakes a hand through her hair, looks over at the boys. Ryan is coughing, his hands on his knees, and Esposito is thumping him on the back. She catches Esposito's eye, and he gives her a thumbs up. She returns it and then makes a telephone signal with her hand. He nods, points to the room. She points to her chest. He nods.

Kate picks her way gingerly toward the threshold of the door. She has to squint to see through all the dust. She doesn't want to go in, just in case she'll be stepping on Matisse's body. Well, a piece of his body, anyway. As the dust starts to settle, she feels the frustration build. Every time they find a lead in this case, it vanishes. She isn't sure how much more of this she can take, but she also knows she can't walk away either. This time, she has to go until she solves it. Or until she dies. Whatever comes first.

"Guess we know your cop friend is a good source for leads," Castle says. His voice still sounds distant over the ringing in her ears. "Even if they do end up dead," he adds.

X-X-X-X-X

Kate is _furious_.

It's her first day back from a resignation brought on, in small part, by some calculating words that Gates knew would piss her off. Kate didn't expect them to be best friends, or even amicable. Just…professional. This case is beyond personal, so she can't afford to be anything other than her very best. And anyway she's—according to Gates, nonetheless—the best detective at the twelfth.

So why the _fuck_ does her opinion suddenly not matter?

"Compromised doesn't even get to be a part of this conversation," she says to Gates, gritting her teeth around the urge to _really_ let her anger fly.

"Don't be ridiculous," Gates says dismissively. She even has the nerve to scoff. "This is my case, and I'm objective. You're not. You're compromised."

"_Your_ case?" Kate spits.

"Detective," Castle murmurs from somewhere behind Kate. It's a quiet admonition, his attempt to still the fury churning inside of her, but she doesn't want to hear it right now.

"Let me tell you something about _your_ case," Kate continues. "There's a pile of dead bodies on top of it, both of _my_ parents included. I've got a dent in my chest from a sniper that works for whoever's behind _your_ case. I almost just lost my whole damn team from a bomb that took out another person of interest in _your_ case. So when is it, exactly, that _your_ life gets put on the line for your case?"

"You are way out of line, Detective," Gates growls. "Maybe my predecessor allowed you to run his precinct for him, but as long as I'm your captain—"

"You are _not_ my captain."

The words hang in stunned silence. There isn't even any noise in the bullpen, and it's not until then Kate remembers that she didn't shut the door all the way behind her. They probably all heard.

She doesn't care.

"My captain died for me," she snarls. "_In place_ of me. He put his life on the line for _my_ case. Not _your_ case."

"You can consider this your notice of suspension. Again," Gates responds. "You're not a part of this investigation anymore."

"Yes," a voice counters from the doorway, "she is."

Kate whirls around, sees Castle shuffling out of the doorway to make room for the Chief of Detectives, Jimmy Bradford, and the person who started this argument in the first place.

Senator Edward Kilgore.

"Detective," Bradford greets, nodding at Kate. "I'm not a fan of your disrespect to your superior, but you're a vital part of this case." He looks right at Gates. "Give me a minute with your captain, please."

It's not a request. Kate exhales slowly, but has no choice to obey. She's halfway out the door when Kilgore snags her arm.

"Detective Beckett?" he says. "I'm Edward Kilgore."

He offers his hand. "I know who you are, Senator," she says as she shakes it. She glances at Gates, catches a glare. "What brings you here?" she asks the senator.

Bradford is waiting, none to patiently, for Kate to make her exit. Kilgore picks up on the nonverbals and smiles apologetically at her. "We can chat in just a few minutes."

For the second time in as many minutes, Kate has no choice but to head for the doorway when she'd much rather stay. As she closes the door behind her, she overhears Bradford saying to Gates, "Do you know what the media will do if we cut her loose and she ends up dead? They'll want your head on a platter, and that means—"

The door clicking shut cuts off the rest of his rant. She stands there for a minute, composing herself, and then looks up.

The entire bullpen is staring at her. Karpowski walks by, nudging her fist into Kate's shoulder as she passes. "Way to say what we're all thinking, Beckett."

Kate stares after her, surprised. Karpowski doesn't turn around. A beat passes, and the cops in the bullpen lose interest and go back to work. Kate scans the room. Esposito beckons to her from next to his desk. Castle is already standing over there next to Ryan. She heads in their direction.

"Did the Chief of Detectives just tell Gates she couldn't suspend you?" Esposito asks, his dark eyes wide and focused on her when she stops next to him.

Kate sighs, runs her hand through her hair. "Yes."

"We all know you'll be the one to crack this open," Ryan says supportively. "We can't afford to have you suspended."

"No," Kate disagrees. "That's not it. It's the same reason Castle still gets to be here. Publicity. Thanks to Nikki Heat, too many people watch this precinct. If they kick me off the force and I end up dead, the media's going to make me out to be a martyr. They'll tell everyone that there's no loyalty left in the NYPD."

"Isn't that true?" Esposito counters. "What kind of captain insults Montgomery in front of you, of all people?"

"At least Kilgore is here now," Castle pipes up, darting his gaze in her direction. She knows he's afraid Esposito's comment will fire her back up, but right now she's too tired for that.

"They'll have to let you interview him," Ryan says. "He's already here of his own accord. I think he wants to help."

"I'll be the judge of that," Kate says. She doesn't like him. She can't say why. It's just a gut feeling. But her gut is never wrong.

The boys nod knowingly. "Heads up, my twelve o'clock," Esposito says, then tries to look as inconspicuous as possible by rifling through a stack of papers on his desk that just happens to be pizza menus.

Kate turns to see Edward Kilgore approaching her with a wide smile. It's the same smile that's on all his campaign posters. "Detective Beckett," he says, extending his hand again. "Let's try this over again."

She shakes his hand, manages a smile of her own. "I'm sorry you had to see that," she says, glancing at Gates' office. Bradford is lingering in the doorway, still talking. Gates looks enraged but compliant.

"I'm sure this line of work leads to quite a few tense situations," Kilgore answers diplomatically. "The nature of the job, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is," Kate agrees. "Do you mind if I ask what brings you here?"

"I was with the mayor, the commissioner, and Mr. Bradford when news of the bomb broke. Mr. Bradford was told by your captain that you were headed to speak with Julio about the Pulgatti case, and I asked if I could tag along and see if you needed to speak with me as well since we worked on it together."

"That's very thoughtful of you," Kate says. She ignores the way Esposito has fixed the senator with one of his death stares. "Mr. Matisse didn't survive the blast. Were the two of you still close?"

"Not really. We lost touch when I became D.A. He was a hell of a prosecutor. He singlehandedly put Pulgatti away."

Kate smiles a little. "You didn't help at all?"

Kilgore grins, and Kate wonders how many women have taken him to bed for his smile alone. "I helped," he hedges. "What makes you so interested in Pulgatti? He was a lifelong criminal."

"True," Kate agrees. "But there were some credible sources who thought his life of crime didn't include murdering Bob Armen."

Kilgore nods. "You mean your mother."

The silence is palpable. Kate stares at him. Her heart pounds in her ears, the internal inferno she's been fighting to control rushing over her skin in a flush of heat. She feels Castle's presence at her back just as she hears him.

"How the hell do you know about that?"

Kilgore looks at the writer, surprised. "I beg your pardon?"

"He said, it's interesting you know that," Esposito answers, stepping close to Kate on the side Castle isn't occupying. "Seeing as most people don't think that's why Mrs. Beckett was killed."

Kate wants to look at the two of them and ask when exactly this became their interrogation instead of hers, but she can't tear her eyes away from the confusion on Kilgore's face.

"Johanna came to see me," he says, glancing from Esposito to Castle and then back to Kate. "Right before she died. She was asking questions about Pulgatti. I didn't realize you thought that's why she was killed."

"My mother came to see you?" Kate asks.

"Yes. And Julio, too. I'm afraid we weren't much help, but I never dreamed that was what got her killed. I thought it was gang violence." He holds Kate's eyes intently. "I'm so sorry if I overstepped. I didn't realize that's why you wanted to speak with me."

Kate clears her throat. "You didn't give her any information on Pulgatti?"

"There was nothing to give. He was guilty as sin. All the evidence proved it. I told her I was very sorry I couldn't help, but there was no way that Pulgatti wasn't Armen's killer."

Kate shakes her head. "Actually, we've recently discovered some new evidence that proves Pulgatti wasn't the killer."

"I don't see what evidence could possibly refute that. I built the case against him myself."

"We have a confession. Multiple confessions, as a matter of fact. All given without knowledge of the others and each story corroborates the others."

Kilgore looks mystified. "Well I'll be damned," he breathes. And then he smiles. "Guess those rumors about your reputation as an investigator aren't just rumors, eh?"

Kate wants to curl her lip at him and sneer. "I do my job," she answers.

He's suddenly serious again. "Before I go, I wanted to give you my condolences." Kate starts to feel the vertigo of the past few days pulling at her, but she can't find steady ground fast enough before the senator finishes his thought. "I heard the horrible news. I'm so sorry to hear about your father."

She swallows. "Thank you," she manages to grind out.

He tilts his head sympathetically. "I'm so impressed by your tenacity. Most people would be taking some time off right now. But here you are."

"Like I said, I do my job."

Kilgore nods. "Yes, of course. I'm sure your father would be proud of you." He adjusts his suit jacket, and then extends his hand. "It's been a pleasure, Detective. Do call if you need to speak to me about Pulgatti again. Though seeing as I was convinced he was guilty, I don't see of what use I can be to you."

Kate shakes his hand. "Of course. Thank you."

He leaves after a cordial head nod to Castle and the boys. Kate watches him go, unable to decide what she thinks of him. Matisse is dead, but Kilgore isn't. If Kilgore knows something about Pulgatti, he should be dead, too. If he knows something, he also wouldn't invite himself to the twelfth to talk to the very people running the case against the Dragon.

Unless he _is_ the Dragon.

Even that doesn't make sense, because the Dragon has a connection to Montgomery. Montgomery never so much as mentioned Kilgore. Not to mention with his position as an ADA at the time of Armen's murder, Kilgore would've been the last person Montgomery would be talking to about an accidental death.

Her phone rings, and she reaches for it while she watches the elevator doors erase Kilgore from view. "Beckett."

"Hey girl."

"Lanie. What's up?"

"Call just came in about a murder. You're going to want to see this."

"I don't think we—"

"Ask me who the victim is."

Kate sighs but decides to humor her best friend. "Who's the victim?"

"Cole Maddox."


	6. Six

_For Carto. It isn't fermented shark, but it will have to do._

* * *

Gravel flies as Kate brings her Crown Vic to a screeching halt by the train yard. Castle finally releases the door handle and heaves a large sigh. She ignores him. She drove like a bat out of hell, yes. But he would too if he was about to see the dead body of the man who almost killed him and did kill his father.

She climbs out of the car and scans the area for signs of the CSU team.

"Kate!"

She turns, sees Lanie leaning out from behind a parked train. The ME waves her over, and Kate heads quickly in her direction. When she rounds the end of the train, the crime scene comes into full view. Yellow tape cordons off a large area that contains three separate tracks. A huddle of CSU workers are standing around the track in the middle.

"He's over there," Lanie says, nodding in that direction. She falls into step next to Kate as they head for the body.

"Time of death?" Kate asks.

"Train ran him over about an hour ago."

"_Train_?" Kate repeats, stopping dead in the middle of the first track.

Lanie nods. "Train. Severed his head."

"Good God," Castle breathes, stopping next to Kate. He sounds a little too excited for her to handle right now. "You mean he got _decapitated_ by a _train_?"

"Looks like it," Lanie says.

Kate stares at her. "How? Was he restrained? Tied to the track?"

Lanie shakes her head. "No restraints, no ligature marks, no defensive wounds."

"So then what's the cause of death?"

Lanie looks suddenly apprehensive. Kate narrows her eyes.

"Lanie. Cause of death."

"I'm sorry, sweetie. But everything points to the train. It looks like a suicide."

Kate shakes her head. "No. Not possible. Cole Maddox would not commit suicide."

"I understand your frustration," Lanie says soothingly. "But I'm telling you, Kate, there's no other wounds. The body doesn't lie."

"There's got to be another explanation," Kate argues. She starts toward the body, and the CSU team parts for her. She walks around the body, takes it in. It's gruesome. Not surprising, considering a train just severed his head from his body. There's blood everywhere, soaked into the track and the stones. His eyes are open and glazed over. No tears on his clothes, no bruising, not even a dirt stain.

Kate keeps circling, keeps looking. There has to be something. She demands gloves from one of the CSU guys, snaps them on, and pats down the body. Nothing in his pockets except his wallet, which still has all the cash and cards. No gun or knife, but also no suicide note.

It doesn't make any sense.

"Did anyone talk to the train conductor?" Kate asks, looking up at Lanie.

"I did," a young uniform says, stepping forward. "He says he spotted a man lying on the track and blew his horn in warning. The guy didn't move. He couldn't stop the train fast enough."

Castle opens his mouth and Kate holds up a hand. "Don't. Cole Maddox would _not_ commit suicide."

Castle watches her. "What's your theory?"

"I don't know," she snaps, "but he sure as hell didn't commit suicide. Maybe someone forced him to lie there."

"Without restraints?" Castle asks.

"Maybe they had a gun on him. He couldn't move."

"He would've moved," Castle says gently.

"Maybe the restraints were removed."

"Uh," the uniform says nervously. Kate glares at him. "The conductor didn't see anyone anywhere near the body. And he didn't leave the body until me and my partner…" he trails off, silenced by her glare.

Kate turns back to Lanie. "Something isn't right."

"I want to agree with you," Lanie says. "I can't make an official judgment until he's on my table, but I don't have another explanation for you right now. The train killed him."

X-X-X-X-X

The ride back to the precinct is silent. Kate knows that Castle wants to say something but won't. He's afraid to piss her off, and he should be. She's barely holding her frustration at bay. First Gates, then Kilgore. Now this. Cole Maddox was the only person left that had a direct link to the Dragon, and he's gone. Seemingly from a suicide, of all things. She doesn't buy it, she can't, a hit man would never…

But it goes against everything she is. She follows evidence, follows where the victim leads. She doesn't make her own stories, because that's what made her mother's murder go unsolved for this long. People making stories fit the crime when it's just that—a story, not truth.

When she takes a right turn at a light when she should've taken a left, Castle frowns at her. "I can't go back to the precinct yet," she answers without looking his way. "I want to stare at our murder board for a while. I can't do that with Gates glaring at me."

He nods, but says nothing. She parks the car in his parking garage, and they ride the elevator up to the loft in silence. When they enter she beelines straight for the office. The second she sees the murder board, she breathes a little easier. This she can do. Look for patterns and spin theories and wait for the autopsy of Cole Maddox. She has no doubt that something will change Lanie's mind. Something has to or she's screwed.

She can't deal with that.

And then, suddenly, she wonders if she can. She stares at her mother's name, at the photos from the crime scene she's studied a million times, and thinks about what her father would say if he were here. How he'd look at her with that affectionate smile and tell her that she's wasting the life he and her mother gave her. Tell her that she had a wonderful man who was crazy about her and a job she loved and she could let this go, she could, she just had to make the choice.

She closes her eyes, thinks about this summer. She got restless, it's true. But nobody's saying she can't be a cop. Nobody's saying she can't solve murders. She's too damn good at it to stop. But this case…she doesn't have to do this. She doesn't have to get herself killed, and she certainly doesn't have to put Castle in the crosshairs either.

She doesn't have to do this.

Minutes have passed, but Castle hasn't joined her. It's too quiet. Kate listens, wonders if he's making coffee or food, but she hears nothing. She stands up. "Rick?"

No answer.

The hairs on the back of her neck stand up. Something isn't right. She reaches for her gun, pulls it from her belt. "Rick," she calls again as she creeps toward the doorway.

She slides fluidly into the living room with her gun drawn. Castle is slumped on the floor in front of the kitchen bar. The cop from the diner is standing next to him.

He holds up his hands. "He'll be fine. He's just passed out for a while."

"Get away from him," she orders. He obeys, walks toward the table with his hands still up. She hurries across the room, bends over to check Castle's pulse but leaves her gun trained on the former cop. Castle's heartbeat thumps hard and alive beneath her fingers. She brushes the back of her hand underneath his nose, feels the warmth of his breath. There aren't any cuts or bumps on him. The cop must have choked him just long enough that he blacked out. He'll be okay.

"He'll be right as rain in a bit. Just give him a little time," the cop says, as if reading her mind.

She stands. "Time you won't have."

He smirks. "What are you going to do, Detective? Kill me?"

"I should."

"You won't. You want to talk to me."

Kate shakes her head. "You seem to be under the impression that I actually give a shit what you have to say. But you're wrong. I have no use for you anymore. You've been nothing but trouble from the moment you first called."

"My clue gave your case a jumpstart."

"Your clue got my father killed."

"Justice has a price—"

"Fuck justice. And fuck you."

He stares at her. She looks down at Castle. He looks the same way he does when he's sleeping. So peaceful and so alive. She wants him to stay that way.

"I don't want this anymore," she tells the cop. "I'm taking myself off the case. You're going to have to find another puppet."

Panic flashes in his eyes. She doesn't understand it. He steps toward her, and she lifts her eyebrows, glances at her gun. He stops. "Look, I'm sorry that your father is dead. I'm sorry both your parents are dead. But you have to see this through. You're the only one that can."

"Why do you care so much?"

"Why _don't_ you?"

"I care."

"Yeah? Then why you walking away?"

She doesn't have an answer for that. Not an answer she wants to share anyway.

"What are you going to do, Beckett? Be a kept woman in a Manhattan penthouse? Read murder mysteries for the rest of your life and pretend that's enough? Pretend you don't have a bullet hole in your chest?"

"At least I'll be alive."

"Don't kid yourself. Take it from someone who knows. You think you're okay with putting it to bed unfinished, you think something else is worth more, but it's not."

She studies him. He's so insistent, every inch of him radiating sincerity. Who the hell is this guy? "What did you think was worth more?" she asks.

He smiles humorlessly. "Does it really matter?"

"You're not the only one who gets to make demands. I want to know who you are."

"Too damn bad."

She clicks off the safety of her gun. "No. You tell me what I want to know, and you tell me now, or I swear to God, I will _end_ you."

He must see it in her eyes. She's not bluffing this time. He licks his lips. "What do you want to know?"

"Let's start with your name."

He sighs. "Armen. Henry Armen."

She stares at him. "Armen?"

"Yeah. My brother was the federal agent your captain murdered. The agent Pulgatti was framed for killing. Can you get that thing out of my face, please?"

She clicks the safety back on, lowers the gun. But she doesn't put it back in her holster. "How'd you find out about Pulgatti?"

"Your mom came to see me. She told me her theory, so I started doing some digging of my own. I was Narcotics at the fourth. Your mom ended up dead a week after she came to see me. The next day some cop shows up at my door. Montgomery."

Kate stares. "Roy came to see you?"

"Yeah. Told me he couldn't tell me how he knew, but that your mom was right. Pulgatti wasn't the one who killed my brother. He said he'd noticed I'd pulled the Pulgatti file, and that I better drop it if I wanted to live. If I kept investigating, they'd do me like they did your mom."

"So you just…stopped?"

He narrows his eyes, obviously not thrilled about her disbelief. She didn't mean it as a censure, but she's not going to backpedal because he took it as one. "Yeah. I just stopped."

Silence hangs in the air for a moment. Kate glances down at Castle, who is still out cold. She looks back up at Armen. "You can't use me to atone for your mistakes."

"But Roy Montgomery can?"

Anger flares in the pit of her stomach. "Don't. Don't you dare."

"He started this, Beckett. He got your mom killed."

"He didn't kill her. But he did die for me."

Armen sighs again. "You're right. And before he died, he sent me everything he had on the Dragon."

Beckett stares at him. He's the one Castle made a deal with? He's the mysterious guy that operated from shadowy parking garages and burner cell phones? "You're Smith?" she demands.

"No. Smith is dead."

She is _so_ confused. "When? How?"

"That would be a question for your good friend Cole Maddox."

"He's dead too."

Armen lifts an eyebrow. "No kidding. Can't say I'm sad to see him go."

"Did _you_ kill him?"

"I wish."

A moment passes in which they just size each other up. This day has already been informational overload—it's all a little hard to process.

"So Smith is dead," she starts. "Presumably because the Dragon figured out he was the guy behind the blackmail."

"Correct."

"But if he's dead, then why aren't you?"

"Because they don't know who I am. I dropped the case, remember? All the Dragon knows is that Smith was taken care of, but the blackmail threat wasn't."

"But if you can bring him down, then why don't you?"

"Because I'm using the information to keep you alive."

"This is insane," Kate says, raking a hand through her hair. "I don't understand."

"Smith died in May," Armen begins patiently. "Before he died, he hit the panic button. Sent me the signal phrase that he'd been discovered. As soon as he did, I made the call. The only reason you're alive is because they need to find me first."

"That's not true. They just came after me a few days ago. The only reason I'm not dead is because I bent over to pick up Castle's keys. That bullet was meant for me."

"No, Beckett. That bullet was meant for your father."

She stares at him. The guilt that's been eating her alive won't let her believe him, so she says it. "I don't believe you."

Armen takes a step toward her, insistent. "Listen, they _can't kill you_. If you die, everything he's built dies with you. Your death will ruin him."

"Then why my dad? Why not Castle?"

"He's not stupid. If he kills Castle, you'll never stop. Not to mention the media shit storm that would ensue is more attention than he likes. But your father? It's the perfect warning. He knew you'd assume they were coming for you or Castle next, and you did. He wanted you to do exactly what you just told me you were going to."

It's starting to make sense. She sees the logic, the calculated risk, the threat that she represents just by being alive. She knows too much. Nobody knows the intricacies of this case like she does, and nobody wants to solve it more than she does. If she were the Dragon, she'd want her dead too. But he can't kill her, and he can't risk killing Castle—kill a famous novelist and the media starts digging too. He can't shut down that many people. So he did the next best thing. He sent a warning.

He killed her father and thought she'd quit.

She'd almost done exactly what he wanted her to.

"You have to understand," Armen continues. "He's _terrified_ of you. You're the only threat left because you're the only person he can't kill."

Kate bites her lip. She looks down at Castle again, wonders if it's true. They can't kill her. They won't risk killing Castle. Armen has the information, but he won't use it because he wants to keep her alive. She wants to ask him why he cares, why it even matters to him if she's alive or dead, but there's another question she needs an answer to first. She looks at him.

"Tell me who he is."


	7. Seven

_Just for the record, I totally had this written before the magic that was last night's episode. I swear. Ask Carto._

* * *

"I can't do that," Armen answers.

Kate stares at him. "Why not?" she demands.

"It's too risky. If you arrest him when I'm your only source and you can't make the charges stick, we're all screwed."

"So what the hell am I supposed to do?'

He shrugs. "Solve the case."

She stares at him for a moment, waiting for the punch line, but it never comes. She shakes her head. "Yeah, that's great. Thanks for the fantastic advice."

He smirks. "I didn't say it was easy. I just said it was what you had to do."

"You know who he is, you have evidence against him, and you want me to work from what, exactly? Every person associated with this case is dead."

"Except you."

She glares at him. "Matisse is dead. Kilgore is a fucking senator. What am I supposed to be looking for?"

Armen starts toward the door. "Matisse's death shouldn't stop you. And neither should a title."

"Wait, where are you going? You can't just _leave_."

He smiles at her over his shoulder. "Sure I can. You've got a lot of work to do."

And then he's gone.

X-X-X-X-X

Rick wakes up slowly. His head aches. When he opens his eyes, his vision is blurry. He feels something combing through his hair. He focuses on it, recognizes a familiar touch. Kate did this once when he wasn't feeling well.

Kate.

His eyes fly open. He's terrified that whoever was strangling him will get to her. He tries to sit up, but she pushes him back down. She's so _strong_.

"Don't," she says, her voice a hush.

He struggles. "Someone is here—"

"Shh," she answers, holding him down more insistently. He stops fighting. She moves her hand down to his cheek and then ghosts her fingers over his lips. "He's gone. We're fine."

Rick looks around, just to make sure. She doesn't chide him; she just waits. When he finally looks at her, she arches an eyebrow. "You done, Rambo?"

He frowns. "I…what happened?"

"Our bible quoting friend was here."

Rick rubs his neck gingerly. "Did he have to _strangle_ me?"

Kate smiles. "I guess he didn't want you to hear what he had to say this time."

She brushes her fingertips along the cords of his neck, biting her lip as she watches her hand instead of meeting his eyes. Desire flares in his stomach. Ever since that night in May, he's had a hard time keeping his hands to himself. He reaches up, tangles his fingers in her hair. She finally looks at him, and the expression in her eyes bowls him over. It's moments like this where he wonders how he ever questioned her feelings for him. Maybe it's not all on him, maybe she never allowed him to see what she shows him now, but it's hard for him to accept that he didn't fully understand what that look meant until he took her to bed.

But still, sometimes he needs to hear it. He doesn't ask her to verbalize it often, but he just got strangled until he blacked out, and there's a hideously powerful man that wants her dead, and he really just wants to hear her say it.

"Love you," she murmurs.

He can't help it; he laughs, the joy erupting from somewhere down deep. She lifts her eyebrows in confusion, but she's smiling. "That funny?"

"No," he says on an exhale. "I'm just…you know."

"I do?"

"You always know. That's all."

He realizes he sounds cryptic and idiotic, but she seems to understand. She leans over, kisses his forehead. When she leans away, there's a sudden, darker tint to her eyes. That haunted look that he almost got rid of this summer. She's back to business, smiles and affection gone. He tries not to sigh.

"Our friend has a name," she tells him.

Rick sits up, leans against the kitchen bar that her back is resting against. "Oh?"

"Henry Armen."

He stares at her, dumbfounded. "Armen? Like _Bob_ Armen?"

"Yeah. Bob's brother."

"Whoa. Didn't see that coming."

"You and me both."

"So what'd he have to say?"

She rests her hand on his knee, gives it a squeeze. "I'm hungry. Come on, I'll fill you in while we eat."

X-X-X-X-X

Kate calls Esposito after lunch, gives him the rundown along with instructions to look into the schedule for the train yard where they found Cole Maddox. He doesn't ask why she isn't coming back to the precinct. He just tells her that he'll update Gates and be sure to tell her to fuck off if she wants more information.

Kate smiles at that.

She and Castle spend the rest of the afternoon in his office not speaking. She's given him the task of finding out everything there is to know about Kilgore, and she's taken Matisse. She wanted Kilgore, wanted to hunt down any idiosyncrasies in his past just to prove that the nasty feeling in the pit of her stomach isn't wrong, but she knows better. She needs to pace herself. Besides, Matisse is an open homicide with a flavorful twist, and that happens to be right up her alley.

They work late into the afternoon. She's contemplating whether the contents of the fridge are more appealing than a Chinese takeout menu, her stomach growling angrily as it waits, when her phone rings. It's Lanie.

"Hey," she says into the phone.

"It's about Maddox," Lanie says, cutting right to the chase.

Kate's opening her mouth to answer when she hears a crash from the study. She turns, on high alert because the incident with Armen is still fresh. Castle comes stumbling out of the study, wild-eyed and ridiculous looking.

"I win, I win, I win!" he says, starting toward her.

"Lanie," Kate says. "Lanie hold on one—"

She's cut off by Castle pulling her in for a bone crushing hug. He nuzzles his nose into her neck, inhaling into her hair. "God, you smell good. I win. You are going to love me _forever_."

He's not exactly talking quietly, and the phone is still up to her ear. She hears Lanie laugh on the other end of the line. "Sorry, sweetie, didn't mean to interrupt."

Castle pulls back, an annoyingly adorable frown creasing his forehead. "Lanie?"

"Castle," Lanie answers.

Kate shoves her boyfriend away impatiently. "Shut up," she says, not sure who she's talking to. Castle looks wounded, but Lanie laughs again. "What do you have on Maddox?" Kate presses.

"Well, right after you left, I got called in for a nasty triple homicide. Took me a while. I just started working on your boy and was looking at the stats…you're right. He wasn't killed by that train."

Kate grins. "I knew it."

"His body temp says he died twelve hours ago."

"So?"

"So the train hit him _six_ hours ago. He wasn't alive when that train cut off his head."

Castle still looks wounded. In fact, he's actually pouting. The good news about Maddox and the vindication racing through her veins is enough for her to close the distance between them and inch her free hand up his chest. He eyes her grumpily.

"So then what killed him?" she asks Lanie, weaving her hands into the hair on Castle's nape.

"Something that made him bleed so much that it looked like that train hit him. Something that left no wounds, no bruises, nothing irregular. Almost the perfect crime."

"Lanie," Kate prompts. She brushes her hips against Castle's, smirks when he grits his teeth and fails to control his body's reaction.

"Somebody cut his throat and then laid him out just right so that the train would go over the wound."

"Wow. Smart."

"I'm smarter," Lanie says.

"I'm smartest," Castle hisses petulantly.

Kate gives him a look. "Thanks, Lanie. Do me a favor and call it in to Espo?"

"Sure. Have fun." Lanie laughs, and then the line goes dead.

Kate rolls her eyes and slides her phone into her back pocket. "Okay," she says, putting her hands on Castle's chest. "Maddox wasn't a suicide. Someone slit his throat and positioned him so the train would run over the wound."

"Cool," he says dully.

Kate sighs. "What, Rick? What did you win?"

"Nothing."

"Oh for God's sake," she huffs. "Stop being a child and tell me what you figured out."

He's still pouting. "Kilgore was in on Montgomery's ransom scheme," he mumbles.

Kate freezes. "He…what?"

He finally looks up at her, his eyes bright. She knew he wouldn't be able to last long. The thrill of a lead is too exciting. "I made a timeline."

"Show me."

He leads her into the office, hooks up his laptop to the Smartboard. A timeline that details the time from Pulgatti's murder until the present day pops up on the screen. Castle points at a section that's marked in red. "This red zone is the time when Montgomery and his buddies were running the ransom scheme. Look at the cases Kilgore was trying."

Kate squints. "Those are all cases against the mob."

"Exactly. Look before the red zone. They're all cases against the mob too."

"So what's the difference?"

"The difference is that once the ransom scheme started, he started winning cases."

Kate looks at him. "You think it was more than just a ransom scheme?"

Castle nods. "Montgomery told us that they would keep the guys they kidnapped for a while. Push them around and scare them a little bit. But I don't think they were just venting anger. I think they were interrogating them for information. Information they then passed on to Kilgore so he could get them convicted."

"That doesn't make sense. It would've been illegally obtained. Inadmissible in court."

"Well he wouldn't have tried to admit it in court, would he? That means he'd have to fess up to being a part of a ransom scheme with some rogue cops. No, what he did was use that information to get _legally_ obtained information. He knew who to go to, where to go, what to look for. It was the inside scoop he needed to bring down the mob."

Kate nods. "Okay. So, Kilgore wanted to be D.A. His platform was that he was tough on organized crime. Problem is that he can't convict. He hooks up with Roy and the others, gets the information he needs, and suddenly starts getting convictions."

"Right."

"So how did he meet the Dragon?"

Castle smiles. "Kate, he_ is_ the Dragon."

Her heart goes still. "How?"

"He doesn't just need convictions to be D.A. He needs to get elected. And to get elected, you need money. Money he didn't have." Castle switches the Smartboard screen over to an article on Kilgore in _The_ _New York Times_. "He grew up without a cent. College on a full ride, law school loans. Being a civil servant doesn't exactly pay well either."

Kate nods. It's true.

"When he got in on the scheme, he got a cut of the money. But when he started getting convictions and decided his dream could become a reality, he realized he needed more. So one night he's sitting in his den, sipping a whiskey and thinking about how to get more money out of the mobsters, when bam! Raglan and McCallister call."

Kate smirks. He's always a writer.

"They start in on this crazy story about how their rookie tagalong accidentally killed some undercover fed and now they're screwed because they've got a dead fed and Pulgatti in the back of their van. They want to know what to do."

"So Kilgore tells them to pin the murder on Pulgatti."

"And then once the cover-up is complete, he threatens to out them if they don't give him all the money."

"And since they have no proof that it was his idea, and since they're the ones who did all the legwork to cover it up—"

"They have no choice but to give him the money and keep their mouths shut or they lose everything."

They stare at each other, grinning. The high that comes with theory building buzzes through her veins, but there's something else too. A current of closure, peace, understanding…she's still got to find more evidence because right now all they've got is a theory, but for the first time in her life the Dragon has a name. No longer is he a faceless demon that haunts her nightmares. He's a middle-aged senator who underestimated her again, only this time it's for the last time.

"Castle," she murmurs.

"Yeah," he says. He's breathless from it all, just like she is.

"Let's go get him."


	8. Eight

They're in her Crown Vic in less than ten minutes.

He doesn't ask to drive, but she's too hyped up to tease him about it. Her hands are trembling. Her whole body is vibrating, a switch flipped to shiver, and the gas pedal seems more sensitive than usual. She guns it out of the parking deck and hangs a right. They drive for a while, the silence pulsing between them. It's quicker to drive through a not-so-nice area of the city to get to the precinct. The case is solved and she wants it over, wants handcuffs on Kilgore _now_, so she doesn't think twice. She takes a left, notices an immediate change in surroundings. Graffiti, trash, rundown buildings, boarded up windows.

"Kate," Castle says, turning to face her. He's trembling too. It's the first thing either of them has said since the words she's been waiting to say for over a decade. _Let's go get him._ "We should call ahead."

She frowns, glances at him quickly before looking back at the road. "What?"

"Call ahead," he repeats. "To Esposito or Ryan or somebody. We should tell them we're coming and that we know who it is."

She takes a hard left, doesn't miss how his hand gropes for purchase on the handle above the door. "Why?" she asks. She's incapable of anything more than sharp and staccato words. She can't stop shaking.

"Well," he starts. Doesn't finish. He seems to be searching for the words. She's impatient.

"Spit it out," she orders.

"People involved in this case have a way of disappearing when they figure things out," he blurts out. His words hang in the air. She sees now why he was dithering for words.

"Oh," she says. "Yeah." She slows to a stop at a red light, her left leg bouncing anxiously. She bites her lip, knowing what she's about to say will be a fight. Doesn't matter, though. It's a battle she'd fight any day.

"I want you to stay at the precinct when we go get him."

She checks the light. It's still red. She looks over at him. He's staring at her. "You have to be kidding me."

"You said it," she points out. "I won't lose you. I can't."

"Not your choice."

"You're a civilian—"

"I'm your _partner_." She doesn't have an argument for that. He breaks eye contact, looks out the windshield resolutely. "Go ahead and try. But you can't keep me away. The light's green."

She's moving her foot from the brake to the gas pedal when the force of the collision sends her body slamming forward. The sound is deafening. Her head jerks forward then snaps back against the headrest, her body held painfully in place by her seatbelt. She gasps around the shock of it, the tight, suffocating ribbon squeezing across her chest.

Once her body stills from the impact, it takes a moment for her to get her bearings. She's in her car. Her hands have found their way back to the steering wheel. Her ears are ringing, her head pounding. Her neck _hurts_. She's having a hard time getting a deep breath.

"Castle," she gasps, looking over. He's slumped forward, but his seatbelt has him firmly in place.

He moans, lifts his head slowly. "Ow," he says.

Her training kicks in. They've been rear-ended. She unhooks her seatbelt, glances in her rearview mirror. She can't make out exactly what kind of vehicle has hit them because there's smoke wafting out of its hood. It's big, though. A truck most likely. Maybe an SUV or van. She turns toward Castle, brushes a hand over his forehead as she reaches into her pocket for her cell phone with her free hand.

"You okay?" she asks. "What hurts?"

He leans back against the headrest, winces. "My knee. Banged it on the dashboard I think."

She bends over him, wants to make sure he isn't bleeding. The sound of breaking glass interrupts and then the windshield explodes. Kate yanks Castle down toward her. A second later, a whoosh and a thump, and foam from the headrest sprays the back of her head.

"Fuck," she says, fumbling for her gun.

Castle struggles beneath her. She presses down on him, unyielding.

"Stop. Don't move."

He obeys. She listens for the sound of a car door opening, but it doesn't come. She lifts her head just enough to see out the passenger window. A warehouse twenty feet away. Large garage doors that receive shipments are open. His knee is hurt. They don't have a choice.

"Listen," she hisses in his ear. "When I say go, you're going to get out of the car and run to the warehouse on your right. Don't look back."

"You'll follow me?"

"I'll cover you."

"And then you'll follow. Or I'll come back."

She sighs. He will. "Yes. I'll follow."

She moves off of him but still stays spread low over the center console. He picks his head up to look at her. "I mean it."

"So do I." She releases the safety on her piece, reaches for her door handle. "Ready?"

He nods.

"Wait until I say."

She flings the driver's side door open. Two bullets careen into the open door, making the car rock.

"Go!"

Castle opens his door. She leans the front half of her body out of her side of the car, returns two shots at what she now sees is a navy F250 with tinted windows. The windshield of the truck splinters but doesn't break. She pulls herself back into the car. Castle darts into the warehouse as another bullet rockets into the open door where her body was a moment ago.

She slithers over the center console. Silence rings in her ears. She takes stock, because she can't get back to her car once she leaves it. Phone in her back pocket. Piece in her hand. She doesn't have her backup. She opens the glove compartment, pulls out a Swiss army knife with an extra long blade. Slides it into her front pocket. Pulls the nylon first-aid kit out. Takes a deep breath.

She tosses the first-aid kit out the open driver's side door. It barely hits the ground before two bullets rip it to shreds. She dives out of the car on the passenger side, fires two shots at the windshield as she heads for the warehouse. The glass cracks again, but still doesn't break. Bullet-proofing is expensive. The windows are tinted, so she can't see who's in the car. Can't be Maddox.

She ducks into the warehouse, presses her back to the wall and exhales slowly. Adrenaline pumps through her veins. She listens for a car door, doesn't hear it. She takes a quick check, expects a bullet to follow. It doesn't.

She licks her lips. "Castle," she calls, just above a whisper.

"Here."

She turns, sees him materialize out of the darkness. He's limping. She has to hide him. She checks again. No one has exited the truck. She scans the inside of the warehouse, takes in her options. A metal staircase sits a few yards away, just beyond a battered delivery truck. She follows the length of it with her eyes, sees that it leads to an upper deck that lines the entirety of the warehouse and includes an office with windows. Probably where the foreman works. Perfect vantage point.

She starts for Castle, grabs his hand and leads him toward the stairs. She takes them two at a time, tugging on Castle so he'll hurry to follow. They sprint along the metal balcony, their feet making dull _ping_ sounds that echo through the empty warehouse. When she gets to the office, she tries the door. Locked. She steps back, sends it crashing in with her foot. More noise than she'd like, but he'll be more protected from stray bullets.

She motions him into the room, presses on his shoulders so he's sitting on the floor. They won't see him. "Text Esposito, call 911."

He obeys, his fingers flying over his phone screen. She peers out the door. Castle's voice reaches her ears, describing their situation in a hushed voice to the 911 operator. She strains her ears, trying to hear over him. It doesn't matter. A moment later, a man enters the warehouse. Kate doesn't recognize him. She'd bet her badge it's Maddox's replacement.

"Hang up," she whispers to Castle, ducking back into the office.

He looks at her, bewildered. She plucks the phone from his hand and ends the call. She peers out the doorway again.

The hit man surveys his surroundings. It's obvious he's trained. It's also obvious he doesn't think much of her, because he's standing out in the open.

She lifts her gun, takes careful aim. Her index finger is inching toward the trigger when another man appears.

Edward Kilgore.

"The fuck?" she breathes, lowers her gun.

"What?" Castle whispers, scoots closer to her across the floor.

She waves her hand to silence him. "Stay there," she demands.

"Well what's wrong?"

"Kilgore is here."

She wants to see the look on Castle's face, but she's too busy staring at the senator.

"Why?" Castle hisses.

She wants to know the same thing. He must be insane. She understands he might feel the need to kill her himself. She wouldn't trust anyone to kill him for her. But the blackmail threat is still in place, and its suicide for him to think that he could—

"Armen's dead," she breathes in the same instant that Castle does. She finally looks at him.

"He wouldn't be here otherwise," Castle whispers. "We're the only link left."

And just when things can't get worse, they do.

Three more men enter the warehouse. All of them walk with the same authority that the new hit man does, the same fearlessness that Lockwood and Coonan had before they'd been killed. She'll just have to shoot the fearlessness out of them like she did to Coonan and Roy did to Lockwood.

And then it hits her. Castle. He doesn't have a gun, he isn't trained in combat. It's just her against four hit men, and all she's got is the nine bullets left in her Sig. She's got the element of surprise and a good vantage point, but that will only work once. She can't creep across the upper deck and pick them off one by one either, because that leaves Castle unprotected.

They're screwed.

"So what's the plan?" Castle whispers.

Kate swallows. Maybe if she leads them away from him? Esposito knows, 911 will send reinforcements, and it's best if Castle stays where they called from. She could pick off a few as she moves across the upper deck, go down one of the two staircases that leads up here or, better yet, jump onto the top of the delivery truck so she isn't a sitting duck as she goes down the stairs. Then she could lead the rest of them out into the street. They'll follow her because she's the one Kilgore wants, and he's here to direct traffic. He's here to make sure she dies because he's sick of the people he sends failing.

She can give him that if it means Castle will live.

She looks her partner right in the eye. "You have to do exactly what I tell you, Rick. We won't make it out otherwise."

He nods. "Yeah. Of course."

She doesn't plan to tell him that he's the only one who's going to make it out.


	9. Nine

"Stay here until help comes."

Castle blinks. "Okaaay. And you'll stay here too?"

"No."

Understanding dawns on his face. "Oh, yeah right. I'm totally going to hide while you go fight the bad guys."

"This isn't one of your books, Rick. There are four trained—"

"Four? Since when are there _four_?"

"—soldiers down there plus a sociopath. You need to let me hold them off until help arrives."

"I can help."

Kate peers around the doorway, just to make sure nobody's moved. They have. All four hit men are slowly starting to move away from each other. Kilgore stands in the epicenter, his hands in his pockets like he does this every day.

"You can't," she tells Castle. "They're moving. Stay put. If you don't, you'll get me killed."

He won't argue with her if it's about her life. She knows that. He watches her as she straightens.

"Are we going to make it out of this?" he blurts out.

She stops. The hit men are still moving and she just wants a second, just a breath to tell her partner that she loves him, she's always loved him, and she's sorry that she can't prove it to him every day for the rest of their lives. "Yes," she says instead.

"Just in case we don't—"

"Shut up, Castle."

"I just—"

"I said shut up. If you say whatever it is you're about to say, that means you've given up. And I don't give up. Not now, and certainly not to the asshole who killed my parents."

One of the hit men is creeping toward the office. He'll hear them soon. She finally looks at Castle.

"I love you too."

And then she ducks out of the office, creeping in a shooter's stance and staying close to the wall, hoping the shadows and the dark will hide her. The men won't think to look up right away. She glances over her shoulder, breathes a sigh of relief that Castle hasn't followed her.

She surveys the ground below her, looking for the best place to start. She only gets to surprise them once. That means she needs to kill two at once in order to take full advantage. She's not stupid enough to wait for three. In the far corner of the warehouse, two men are moving close enough that she could hit them both before being seen. They're also close to the staircase and the delivery truck. She could kill them, get to the ground floor and take off. They'd never know she came from the office, so they wouldn't know where to check for Castle.

She moves as fast as she dares, knowing that if she goes too fast they'll hear her shoes on the metal. When she gets in range, she crouches. She'll hit the closer one first. She sizes him up, decides he isn't wearing any Kevlar. Lucky for her, since she's only got nine bullets for five people. Two for each hit man, one for the senator.

She won't need two for Kilgore. She won't miss him.

She exhales slowly, lines the shot up. She remembers doing a drill during the academy in a warehouse like this. Best score in her class. She hopes it pays off now.

She squeezes off two rounds straight into the chest of the guy below her. The sound of the shots sends all the rest of them men spinning in her direction, including her next target. He turns just in time for a bullet in the stomach and another just below his sternum.

Kate's up on her feet before either of the bodies hit the floor. She takes off toward the delivery truck, shouts echoing in her ears. A bullet whizzes past her cheek and she ducks, slides her body under the railing that lines the walkway and then catapults herself onto the top of the delivery truck. Her feet land with a metallic _thud_. She falls forward, lands hard on her shoulder. A bullet whizzes over her head. She rises up on one knee, takes aim and hits a shooter right between the eyes.

She can hear Kilgore's voice. He's furious, shouting at the last hit man, the one who'd been driving the F250, to do his fucking job. She sends up a silent prayer that Castle is staying put and then slides down the windshield of the delivery truck, hits the hood, jumps onto the pavement. She stays there for a second, her knees screaming from all the impact. She tries to control her breathing. She needs to hear what's going on.

She hears a chuckle. It echoes off the rafters, fills the warehouse. Her hair stands on end.

"Nicely played, Detective."

It's Kilgore. She really, really wants to say something snarky about monologuing, but she's not feeling that confident. Castle is still here, still unarmed, still helpless. She can't make a break for the street. They'll shoot her and Castle will get himself killed trying to get to her as she bleeds out.

"I want you to understand a few things before you die," Kilgore continues. "Your friend Armen? He's dead. Your fault."

Kate crouches, looks under the truck. One set of feet is coming straight for the truck without a shiver in its step. Another pair is creeping along in front, probably in a shooting stance. She gets up. She has to move.

"Smith? He's dead too. Also your fault. And then there's our good friend Montgomery."

She spots some high stacks of boxes a few feet away. The stacks are just far enough apart that she can see through the cracks between them. She moves toward them quickly, covered from view by the size of the delivery truck.

"And last, but certainly not least, is dear old dad. So I guess that begs the question, how many people are you going to let die for you? When are you going to learn to fight your own battles?"

Kate peers through the boxes, sees the hit man round the front of a truck expecting to find her. Kilgore follows. He's got a small gun in his hand. The hit man swivels, looking for her. The space between the boxes isn't big enough for her to aim at them. She can't duck out from behind the boxes and manage to line up her shot and shoot them both before getting shot herself. She's weighing her options when movement catches her attention.

Castle.

He's creeping along the metal walkway, his eyes on Kilgore. She wants to scream at him, but she can't without giving him away. What the hell is he _doing_?

"You and I aren't that different," Kilgore continues, checking behind another stack of boxes nearby. The hit man is moving straight for her. Castle notices, pauses. Kate waves her hand at him, motions back to the office. He's high enough that he can see her over the stack. He shakes his head at her.

"We both let people do our dirty work," Kilgore says. "Difference is that this isn't my reckoning. This is yours."

Hit man is closing in on her. She has to move on him and hope Castle stays put, hope she can get a shot into Kilgore before he gets one into her.

"Time to settle your accounts, Detective. Time to answer to the dead who died for you. They can't protect you anymore."

"Hey!" Castle shouts. "Up here!"

Kate only has a split second to curse her partner's stupidity before it's all in motion.

The hit man swings around and raises his gun. Kate steps out from behind the boxes, sends two rounds into his back. He drops to his knees and she sees Kilgore over his shoulder, gun aimed at Castle. Castle's eyes widen and then he moves, takes off down the walkway, but Kilgore's already shooting.

Bullets pepper the area just behind Castle. Kilgore takes off for the stairs, and Kate takes off after him. He looks over his shoulder, sees her giving chase. He fires a shot in her direction and she hits the ground, the bullet barely missing her shoulder. She's up again as another shot rings out. She doesn't glance up at Castle, too focused on almost….reaching…

Kilgore is a few steps up the metal staircase when she wraps her fingers around his ankle and yanks. He hits the stairs hard, grunting in pain. His gun clatters onto the cement floor through the opening between the stairs. He turns, levels a kick at her face and misses. Instead he hits her shooting hand, and her gun skids away across the concrete.

He shoves both his feet into her stomach next, a kick that knocks the wind out of her and sends her stumbling backward. She gasps, hunched over. He spots her gun, starts for it. She inhales but barely gets any air. She moves anyway, black spots dotting her vision. He bends to pick up the gun and she tackles him. It sends them both flying into a pile of boxes. The boxes crash to the floor with them on top. Kilgore thrashes against her as she struggles to reach into her front pocket. He closes his fingers around her neck as she finally pulls the knife out.

She flips the blade open and shoves it straight into him.

Everything goes still.

Kate doesn't move. His eyes are wide, staring at her as his mouth tips open in shock. He exhales, his breath fanning over her face. A glazed film starts to lower slowly over his eyeballs. She can almost see her reflection in it. She doesn't move, just watches for what seems like hours, days maybe.

There's blood on her hands. It pumps out of him and drenches her fingers, warm and sticky. It's stained her shirt. The knife handle grows slippery in her hand, achingly warm from the life she's taking from him, or maybe taking back. She twists the knife, grits her teeth as it turns in his stomach, rips jaggedly through the muscle. He grunts quietly, desperately.

"How's that for a reckoning?" she whispers.

She moves the blade up inside of him before yanking it out. Then she stands, towering over him, the bloodied knife in her hand. Kilgore blinks up at her, the last bits of life leaving his eyes. She doesn't care. She isn't sorry. She won't breathe again until he isn't breathing.

When his head lolls to the side, she exhales. She looks around, makes sure there isn't a hit man coming out of nowhere for her. There isn't.

"Castle," she rasps, her voice suddenly sore. She looks up, expects to see him watching from the walkway, tired but triumphant.

He isn't.

Her heart stills. "Castle," she calls, panicked.

She takes the stairs two at a time, the knife still in her hand. When she gets to the top, she sees a person lying on the walkway up ahead. He isn't moving.

_Castle_.

Sirens wail in the distance as she sprints toward her fallen partner.

_How many people are you going to let die for you?_


	10. Ten

This is the second time in three days that Kate has been in this waiting room. This is the fourth person Edward Kilgore has tried to take from her. Her mother. Her father. Roy Montgomery. She closes her eyes.

_Please don't take Castle. _

Predictably, the doctor comes with news two minutes after Alexis and Martha head to the hospital cafeteria for some coffee.

Kate can't get to her feet fast enough. The anxiety has robbed her of her grace, but she's too terrified to be embarrassed when she nearly falls flat on her face at the feet of the surgeon.

"How is he?" she demands.

"He's going to be fine. We've repaired the damage, and he just needs time to heal. He's asking for his family. Three women—Alexis, Martha, and Kate."

Warmth floods her. "I'm Kate."

The surgeon smiles. "You're not the mother or the daughter, so I assume you're the wife?"

"Did he tell you that?" Esposito asks from somewhere behind Kate. She can hear the smirk in his voice.

"Yes," the surgeon says. "I'm sorry though, only family for now."

"That's fine," Esposito says. "Wouldn't want to infringe on his wife's time."

Kate makes a mental note to smack the smirk off his face after she sees Castle.

The surgeon leads her back to Castle's room. She stops in the doorway, suddenly nervous. He doesn't notice her right away because he's talking to the nurse.

"So wait," he says, his voice low and scratchy. "You're saying that Rook and Heat should _elope_?"

"I'm saying that Heat wouldn't do a big wedding," the nurse answers as she fusses with his IV. "So at least consider it."

"Hm. I'll have to consult the muse. She can be very picky about these things."

Kate clears her throat. Castle snaps his head in her direction and then grins when he sees her. He doesn't look even a little abashed at being caught calling her picky. Probably because he's high.

"Speaking of beauty, here's the muse herself."

Yeah, definitely on drugs.

"Detective Beckett, I assume," the nurse says, nodding briskly. "Congratulations on your wedding."

"Thanks?" Kate says slowly, eyeing Castle. He grins wider. "How's he doing?"

"Oh, just fine," the nurse says, patting Castle's leg. "I'll leave you two alone."

She smiles widely at Kate and then leaves. Kate narrows her eyes at her partner.

"Wedding?" she says.

He shrugs. "I didn't want them to keep you out because we don't fit their definition of family."

She nods. Silence envelops them. He smiles at her, watching her from the other side of the room. She wants to go to him, wants to touch him and kiss him and tell him he was so _stupid_ but she loves him anyway. She stands, rooted in the doorway.

"Why are you all the way over there?" he asks her gently.

She opens her mouth to answer, but shuts it when she realizes she isn't sure what to say. She's still in shock that he's up and coherent. The last time she saw him, he was bleeding and fading fast on the floor in a dark warehouse.

She finally makes her way closer to him, stopping next to the bed. She eyes the spot where he'd been shot, right below his collarbone on his right side.

"How are you feeling?"

His smile widens. "Better now that my wife is here."

"We're not married, Castle."

He winks. "Not yet."

She wants to smile. She really does. But she can't. His jokes are painful. Maybe because she came so close to recognizing what life would be like without them. "Can you not be a child?" she pleads. "Just for a minute? You almost got yourself killed."

His smile fades. "But I didn't."

"You're lucky. If you ever pull a stunt like that again—"

He reaches up and covers her mouth with his hand. She goes still. "I'm sorry I scared you, Kate."

She holds his eyes and then moves his hand, leans forward, and presses her mouth to his. His lips meet hers, ready, and she revels in it. She pulls away a fraction but lingers close to his mouth with her eyes closed.

"Don't do it again," she murmurs.

"Okay," he whispers.

He cups her face, pulls her in for another kiss. His tongue trails along her bottom lip and she opens her mouth to let him deepen the kiss, reaching up to rest her fingertips on the hand he has against her cheek. When she pulls away for good, he's grinning.

"Solve the case and get the girl," he says goofily. "Good guys win again."

The past four days rush over her. So many people are dead. Some of them are what Castle would call _bad guys_. But does that matter? She killed five men tonight. Men who might have daughters and she killed them anyway, didn't even blink doing it, and really, how is she any different than Kilgore?

He was right. Tonight was her reckoning. And the man smiling up at her in adoration from a hospital bed doesn't understand. She isn't what he thinks she is. She's killed before. She understands that she did what she had to do. But it's more than the blood of five dead bodies on her hands. It's Smith and Armen, her father and Montgomery, all dead because they were trying to protect her. Nine dead.

Nine.

She leans away from him. "I'm not sure I'm a good guy anymore, Castle."

He frowns. "You solved the case, Kate. How are you _not_ a good guy?"

"I killed five people tonight."

"They would've killed you if you hadn't. You and me both."

"And Armen? Smith and Montgomery? My dad?" Her voice cracks on the last word. She licks her lips, can't look at him anymore. "You," she finishes just above a whisper.

"I'm not dead."

"That's not the point."

He sighs, spreads his fingers over the hospital blanket. "You shouldn't do that."

"Do what?"

"Beat yourself up." He looks up at her. "Let the dead bury the dead, Kate. Don't dive in after them."

A commotion starts outside the door and then suddenly Alexis is there, and Martha, and they're fawning over Castle, hugging him and kissing him and telling him how much they love him.

Kate steps away from the bed, doesn't want to infringe on a family moment. It's more than she can bear. A family that she almost tore apart because Castle nearly died trying to protect her. She remembers Armen staring out the diner window wistfully, clutching his ceramic coffee mug as though it was all he had left in the world.

_People used to look at me like I was some kind of hero. They don't look at me like that anymore._

Maybe this is what happens when the dragon is slain. Maybe the knight in shining armor realizes that in order to rid the world of evil, part of him has to become evil too. The evil never really goes away. It just changes form. She always thought that closing this case would set her free; that closure was the light at the end of the tunnel. Instead, she's found herself stuck in a glass dome, watching the world she was supposed to rejoin but has never felt farther from.

Castle watches her. His eyes say it all, pleading with her not to go. The walls are closing in. She can't breathe. She needs to find a way to be good enough again.

She goes.

X-X-X-X-X

She finds herself back at the twelfth.

Even the possibility of running into Gates isn't enough to keep her away. Her apartment is empty to the point of suffocation. The loft has too much evidence of the family she almost destroyed. The only home she can stomach right now is the bullpen where it's habit to compartmentalize and justify. Yes, you kill, but you do it because you have to. Yes, you allow the cop next to you to die in your place, but you do it because there is something else meant for you, something greater, perhaps dying for the cop on the other side of you.

The bullpen is close to empty. She sits at her desk. She wants to believe the justification. She wants to believe that the four people who died for her will not have died in vain. But what decides that? How does she know? Even if she closes a hundred cases, even if she becomes Captain or Commissioner, even if she saves dozens of lives or sacrifices her own—how will she _know_?

And how does she live with herself if she wakes up one day and realizes that no matter how hard she tries, her life will never be worthy of the sacrifice of theirs?

"Detective Beckett?"

Kate startles, looks up from her hands in her lap to see a petite woman standing next to her desk.

"What?" Kate blurts out. "I mean, yeah. That's me. What can I do for you?"

The woman adjusts the strap of her purse, licks her lips absently. "My name is Corinne. I'm Henry Armen's daughter."

Kate feels the blood drain out her face. "Oh," she breathes. She gets to her feet clumsily, nearly sends her chair tumbling backward. "I'm so sorry for your loss."

Corinne smiles humorlessly. "Thank you. Actually, that's why I'm here."

Dread weighs in Kate's stomach. She's suddenly afraid that this case isn't over after all, that Kilgore wasn't the Dragon, but a smokescreen hiding the real one.

Corinne reaches into her purse. "I just came from the morgue. They had his things in a plastic—"

she chokes on the words, pauses. She takes a deep breath, looks up resolutely. Her eyes are glassy but determined. Kate wants to reach out to her, but resists. Whatever Corinne has to say, she wants to get it out.

"They let me take his things. I have his wallet." She pulls it out of her purse, stares down at it in her hand. "I remember when I was a kid that every time he bought a new wallet, he would cut a slit into the inside lining like this."

Corinne unfolds the wallet and then turns it toward Kate, points a manicured finger at a slit in the lining that Kate never would've noticed if it hadn't been pointed out.

"He put a picture of me and my mom in there," Corinne continues. "He always said it was because if anyone stole his wallet, they wouldn't steal us because they wouldn't know to look for a hidden pocket."

Corinne slides a finger into the slit and pulls out a small, folded piece of paper. Kate's heart starts pounding.

Corinne meets Kate's gaze head on. "It wasn't just me and my mom he didn't want anyone to steal."

She holds out the paper. Kate takes it with a shaking hand, unfolds it. Scrawled across the paper in untidy capital letters are the words _Beckett Grand Central 2841_.

"I asked the M.E. if it meant anything to the case he died for," Corinne says. "And she told me I should come see you. She said you'd know what to do."

Kate nods but can't find any words. She knows exactly what to do.

X-X-X-X-X

It's the middle of the afternoon, but Castle is out cold.

Kate lingers in the doorway, watching the rise and fall of his chest. Alexis and Martha have gone back to the loft. Nurses are around, but the ICU is relatively quiet except for machines beeping and breathing. The curtains are pulled shut, so it's almost dark in his room.

Kate steps into the room, closes the door behind her. It gets darker. She lets her eyes adjust to the dimness, then moves toward the bed. When she gets there she runs her hand through his hair, down over the stubble on his cheek.

He stirs, blinks. "Med-sin?" he asks.

"No," Kate says, removing her hand. "Sorry. Do you need some? I can get a nurse—"

He catches her hand before she goes. "No."

She turns back. He smiles at her sleepily.

"That's why I've woken up the past two times. Someone wanting to give me medicine. Believe me, you're much better."

Kate laughs quietly. She weaves her fingers through his hair again. "You're only saying that because the medicine is working."

He smiles goofily. "Maybe." A moment passes, and then he's suddenly serious. "I didn't think you were coming back."

It hurts her that he has so little faith in her, but she doesn't blame him. She runs her thumb across his cheek. "I'll always come back, Castle."

He catches her hand, kisses her palm. "Where'd you go?"

"Grand Central Station. Locker number 2841."

He frowns. She traces the stubble on his jaw line.

"It's where Armen kept the black mail. I handed it off to the feds a few hours ago. And then I got to watch them release Pulgatti from jail."

His grin is blinding. "How was it?"

She shakes her head but she can't stop a grin. She did it. She did what her mother died trying to do. "I wish you'd been there," she whispers.

He scoots over, making room on the bed and then patting the space. She opens her mouth to argue and he pouts. "It's a celebration. We can't do anything inappropriate so you could at least cuddle with me."

A laugh bubbles out of her unbidden. She climbs into bed carefully, glad that he's made room for her on his uninjured side. It means she can rest her head on his chest.

It's his turn to comb his fingers through her hair. She doesn't say anything else, content to listen to the pounding of his heart.

"You are good, Kate," he says, breaking the silence.

She stops breathing for a second.

"I know you feel guilty because you're alive and they're not," he continues. "But you can't do that. You just have to live and be the best that you can be because that's why they died. So you could have that chance. Spending any of the time they gave you feeling guilty…well, that's just wasting the gift."

She breathes into his chest. He smells like hospital, but somewhere beneath that she can still smell Castle. "I don't want to waste it," she tells him.

"So don't."

"On one condition."

He stops brushing his hand through her hair. She looks up at him, her chin resting on his chest.

"Let's not waste it together."

He grins. "Deal."


End file.
